The Hong Kong Rugby Union’s Women’s U20s sevens team lost 7-5 to Thailand in the Cup final of the Asia Rugby U20s Sevens Series this afternoon in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

The Men’s U20 bounced back from a tough opening day to win the Plate beating Chinese Taipei 17-12 in the final.

The Women’s U20 started the day with their best performance of the weekend in a 41-0 hammering of Malaysia in the semi final. As expected, Thailand also advanced easily after a 34-7 win over Singapore.

In the final, Hong Kong’s hopes of a first Cup win were buoyed early on when Stella Tam crossed over for her side’s only points in the opening minute. The game see-sawed on the halfway line for the remainder of the first half with neither side able to add points on the board.

Early in the second half, Thailand capitalised on its pace and solid support play to cross over for their first points of the match, including the crucial conversion of the try, to take a 7-5 lead with six minutes remaining. The remainder of the final was a frantic affair with Hong Kong throwing everything into attack while the Thais were repeatedly penalised for infringements, but no card was shown by the referee and time ran out on Hong Kong’s comeback attempt.

Despite being gutted at the result, coach Sam Feausi was “extremely proud of the girls,” noting that, “they improved game by game and Thailand were fortunate to get the win at the end of the day.

“We lost to Thailand 24-12 yesterday but only by two points today in the final. The Thais are quick and play a lot of offload ball - but our girls learn quickly as well. Overnight we analysed their style of play and executed a plan to counter it and we nearly won.

“The girls are hugely disappointed but there are a lot of positives to take out of this weekend, first and foremost, we have a very good team. Now we just need to believe in our abilities and go back and prepare for the Hong Kong tournament in a few weeks,” said Feausi.

Hong Kong Men’s U20 capture the Plate

After finishing third in Pool A, Hong Kong rallied from the disappointment of not advancing to the Cup final for the first time in two seasons to win the Plate in Johor Bahru. Hong Kong beat Chinese Taipei 17-12 in the final after knocking out Thailand 19-12 in the semi. It was Hong Kong’s second win over Taipei today after a 24-0 blowout in the final pool match.

Coach Fan Shun-kei was pleased with his side’s improved performance saying, “We were so much better today,” said the former Hong Kong Sevens star, “we really started well with the win over Chinese Taipei and we eliminated a lot of the individual errors and played to our game plan more.”

“Even after starting slowly in the semi final and giving a couple of tries to Thailand, we kept our composure and exerted good steady pressure to come back from behind and reach the Plate final,” Fan added.

In the final, the nerves of a side bereft of several veteran sevens players this weekend was tested once again. Hong Kong had taken a 5-0 lead into half-time when a torrential downpour forced play to be halted for over an hour. After re-starting play, Chinese Taipei scored two opportunist tries in quick succession to take a 12-5 lead, before Hong Kong drew level late in the match.

In the final seconds, Oliver Duffy, a tournament-week replacement for the injured Hugo Chui, broke down the Taipei defence to cross over for the game-winning try and salvage some silverware for Hong Kong, the defending series champions.

“Of course our aim was reaching the Cup competition but we have learned a lot about the players this weekend. Many of them had not really played international sevens previously and now they have an idea of the intensity required.

“We also have a few players in the wider squad not here this weekend so when we go back we will analyse our performance with the individual players and start working on integrating the new guys in the team,” Fan added.

Hosts Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Japan advanced to the Cup with Korea knocking out heavily fancied Japan 24-19 while Sri Lanka stopped the host team’s strong run 29-14 in the other bracket.

Sri Lanka won the Cup 38-0 giving them 14 points on the Series table ahead of the final leg in Hong Kong (12-13 August). South Korea are in second (12), Japan in third (10), Malaysia in fourth (8) and Hong Kong in fifth place with 7 points.