Kerry Hotel Kowloon will host Herbert Smith Freehills HKU Sandy Bay in tomorrow’s Saxo Capital Markets Men’s Premiership game of the week at Kings Park. 

In other Premiership action, Societe Generale Valley host Natixis HKFC at Happy Valley, while Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish put the Broony Quaich on the line for a second straight week at Shek Kip Mei against Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers.  All men’s Premiership games kick off at 16.30.

Despite both teams being stuck towards the bottom of the table, the Game of the Week offers an exciting prospect. 

Kowloon are coming off a hard-fought 23-17 win over then undefeated HKFC last Saturday, while Sandy Bay continues to run matters close with a 20-16 loss to Scottish - their second defeat within seven points in the last two outings. 

But bonus points are not the aim in Aberdeen and Sandy Bay is intent on breaking into the win column after Kowloon’s victory at Sports Road left them the sole winless club in this season’s Premiership.

Improvement is on the cards with Hong Kong internationals Ben Roberts, Dylan Rogers, Jack Delaforce, Liam Slatem and Tom and Alex McQueen all in action against Scottish last weekend, with the McQueen brothers marking their debut for the newly formed Sandy Bay.

Kowloon have also started turning their season around, aided by a growing number of internationals in their ranks, including Hong Kong captain James Cunningham and backs Bryn Phillips and Lewis Warner, both of whom are in the frame to earn first caps at the Rugby World Cup 2019 repechage tournament in France next month.

Kowloon coach Scott Sneddon hailed his side’s all-in defensive effort against Football Club and called for more of the same on Saturday.

“It was a good win first of all. The boys were outstanding. Defensively we never stopped putting them under pressure, which is how and why we won.

“Now we have to back it up again with another big defensive performance on Saturday, which isn’t easy to do, but if we don’t, then the win over Football Club won’t really account for much.

“[Sandy Bay coach] Brett Wilkinson is a very good coach and a front rower, so they are very well drilled. Good scrum; good lineout; good mauling game. They have a physical pack and that is going to be a real factor this week. They are a tough side to do it against,” he said.

Sneddon also knows that the strong club culture at Kowloon will stand them well in challenging times.

“Even leading into this week, we have an unsettled sort of squad, in terms of picking our strongest 23. We’ve had a fair few injuries already, so, against Football Club it was just a case of the boys working hard for each other, which is what Kowloon is all about really.”

This weekend’s action concludes the first of three rounds of Saxo Capital Markets Men’s Premiership action with the Hong Kong squad set to travel to first Wales for warm-up matches and then France to play Germany, Kenya and Canada in the round-robin World Cup 2019 repechage later this month. 

Saxo Capital Markets Men’s Premiership action will resume on 1 December.