Societe Generale Valley and Natixis HKFC claimed the KPMG Premiership Top 4 and Premiership A titles this afternoon.  

Gai Wu Falcons won the battle over Valley today, (12-5), but lost the war to defend the league title they lifted from Valley the same time a year ago.  

Both sides finished the Top 4 campaigns at 5-1, but Valley claimed the title on better points differential (+13) over Gai Wu.  For a second straight season Gai Wu managed to upend Valley’s win streak, which comes to a halt at 12 dating back to October.

For Falcons coach Lai Yiu-pang it was a bittersweet occasion, “Credit to Valley, they dug deep throughout the game and the season and they deserve their league title. Our girls did what we asked them to do, with a dominant performance in the forwards and in the contact area. They won the game, but did not quite do enough to win the league.

“It’s disappointing for them of course, but now the girls are learning why we have been saying that it is not enough to just win games in this league, you need to get those bonus points over the season to win the title,” he added.

The two sides may meet again in a few weeks, in what would be a repeat of last year’s Grand Championship final - which was won by Falcons, but Lai is aware that his side will have to first get past USRC Borrelli Walsh Tigers, who beat Kerry Hotel Kowloon this afternoon 36-12 to finish in third place.

“We are only thinking about Tigers now. We beat them recently by 22-0 but we know that anything can change in this competition week by week.

“We were happy about the win today, but we know we could have done better on the season. We can take a lot of confidence out of beating Valley. We played to our strengths today, although the weather did not allow for much expansive rugby,” said Lai.

As usual it was a close affair between the two powerhouses with Gai Wu maintaining a slim 7-5 lead at the break after Chan Ka-yan’s 27th minute try was converted by fly-half Stephanie Chan.

Valley struck back late in the half with a try by fly-half Rebecca Thompson to make the final 40 minutes interesting with the score stuck at 7-5.  

Some early fireworks in the second half saw Valley captain Dr Karen So sin-binned in the opening minutes, helping Falcons stay on the attack but neither side was able to press home any advantage in the final stages, until Falcons winger Chong Ka-yan broke the score open with a try on 80 minutes to send Gai Wu home 12-5 winners.

In Premiership A, HKFC Ice won the league title after beating SCAA First Pacific Causeway Bay 31-12 at HKFC.  The Prem A crown was one of seven league titles won today by teams from Sports Road.

Club received a boost ahead of the match with the return of fullback Elizabeth Musgrove, who is in camp with Scotland’s Six Nations team, for today’s final. While welcome, it proved largely unnecessary as Club grew a 12-7 lead at half time into an eventual 31-12 win.  Musgrove did account for a brace of tries in the final quarter but by then Club had sewn matters up.  

Early on things were looking like an arm wrestle with the teams trading tries in the first quarter with Causeway Bay taking the advantage, 5-7, after their opening conversion was on target.

It looked as if that score would hold but Club fly-half Aileen Ryan scored on the stroke of half-time, and converted her own try, to send Club into the break with the lead - and the momentum - at 12-7.

The sides once again exchanged scores to start the second with Au Sze-wai levelling things for Causeway Bay at 12-all in the 53rd minute. Rose Hopewell-Fong broke the deadlock after 60 minutes with her try to give the hosts a 19-12 lead, which Musgrove grew to 24, then 29, over the last 20 minutes. Ryan added the final conversion to bring the score to 31-12.

In next week’s Prem A Grand Championship semi-finals, HKFC Ice will play Plastic Free Seas City Sparkle while Causeway Bay battle it out with third ranked Transact24 Tai Po Dragons, who beat City today 12-5.