The 54th New Year’s Day Youth Tournament was the perfect start to another year of Hong Kong rugby activity, with parents, players and supporters coming together to celebrate the best of the best in the Youth game.

The ongoing travel restrictions meant fewer returning overseas students this year, so the format had a slightly different look with boys and girls U16 and U19 Hong Kong Clubs Select XVs pitted against English Schools Foundation (ESF) Select XVs. Every team put on a skilful and competitive display, much to the delight of the large festive crowd whose cheers could be heard reverberating around Hong Kong Football Club, with every game going down to the wire in the tense final minutes.

Tony Karton, HKRU Director of Youth Rugby, was delighted by the standard of play on show; “After two challenging years it is tremendous to see the future stars of Hong Kong rugby back on the pitch.  I’d like to congratulate all those who have provided such an entertaining afternoon of first class rugby action - players, coaches and officials – and look forward to an exciting new year for our youth players.”

With a number of standout performances, the selection for this year’s winner of the Larry Abel Trophy, named after our much-missed advocate of the Youth game, was tight, but the positive impact and high standards from Micayla Baltazar saw her take home the silverware, earning her place among the list of illustrious previous winners such as Keith Robertson and Natasha Olson-Thorne.

As always, it takes a lot of work to make such a great tournament come to life, and we would like to extend our warmest thank you to all players, coaches, supporters and match officials for a great day of rugby. We’d also like to thank our event partners ESF, Dettol Hong Kong, First Point USA, Kely Support Group, as well as our hosts, Hong Kong Football Club. 

RESULTS