Kowloon and Bloomberg HK Scottish will be looking to rebound from close losses in the Old Mutual International Men’s Premiership game of the week tomorrow.

They lock horns from 3.00pm on Saturday at King’s Park, while Societe Generale Valley host Herbert Smith Freehills at Happy Valley also at 3.00pm and Natixis HKFC and the Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers do battle at 6.00pm at Football Club.

Kowloon came within a whisker of one of their best wins of the season in a last-minute 20-16 loss to Tigers last weekend and coach James Scaysbrook has given his players a clear blueprint for success against Scottish.

“They are obviously a team that really want to play and their willingness to move the ball and try and offload is something that we are going to have to be prepared for with our defence,” Scaysbrook said.

“They have got a couple of pretty direct players in amongst all that as well, so we’re expecting them to play a fair bit.”

It’s been a tough season thus far for last year’s finalists Kowloon, yielding only four wins, but Scaysbrook saw positives in the loss to Tigers that he hopes they can build on as the season reaches the business end.

“I think there were parts of the performance that we were pleased with and obviously parts that were not great that we will look to work on,” he said.

“In terms of an improvement, there was one, but there are still a few areas that we need to work on to make sure when it is close like that we close it out or make sure that it isn’t close to begin with.”

Scottish are also in decent form after going down to Valley by just three points but will have to face a Kowloon side close to full strength.

“Everyone’s available barring [hooker] Jamie Tsang who unfortunately hasn’t been able to play since just before the Christmas break and he’s out for the rest of the season having had a neck operation,” Scaysbrook said.

“We’ve got the sevens guys back this week which is great for us, it just strengthens the squad as a whole.”

The winner of the clash between Tigers and HKFC, who are level on 43 points on top of the table, will firm as the favourite for the league championship with only two rounds to follow this one.

Tigers coach Sam Hocking has noticed some subtle changes in the way Football Club are going about their business since Cameron McIntosh took over from Phil Bailey over the Christmas break.

“They like to play a little bit of rugby now with Macca taking over, they are playing from all over the place,” Hocking said. “We have got to look at controlling the game a little bit and making sure we don’t give away penalties because [HKFC full back] Glyn Hughes is in a bit of form with the boot.”

Tigers are nursing a couple of niggles, with centre Tyler Spitz one player who is racing the clock to be fit, however Hocking knows he won’t be relying on only a few players to get the job done.

“A lot of our boys have been putting their hands up recently, [second rower] Lawrence Miller has been going well the last couple of games, [back rowers] Josh Hrstich and [Joe] Ellyatt have been ever-present and [scrum half Josh] Walden of course. It was also good to have Liam Gallaher back in the mix last week.”

It has been a winning start for McIntosh, with HKFC continuing on their impressive season with big wins in their new boss’s first two matches in charge.

The Cricketers are in for another testing week, with Brett Wilkinson’s side facing perhaps the toughest assignment in the Premiership – five-time reigning grand champions Valley on their home patch.

Valley return to their home ground for the first time since early December and will be out to will be out to boost their points difference as the race for the league championship comes down to the wire.

Valley sit five points behind HKFC and Tigers on the table and, with a points difference of 21 compared to the Tigers’ 48 and HKFC’s 199, they will be looking to pile on the tries against the struggling Cricketers.