Natixis HKFC and the Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers do battle in a mouthwatering game of the week in the Old Mutual International Men’s Premiership this weekend.

Two of the competition’s form sides lock horns from 6.00pm on Saturday at Football Club, while Societe Generale Valley and Herbert Smith Freehills HKCC kick off the round at 3.00pm at Happy Valley. Kowloon and Bloomberg HK Scottish are both out to return to the winners list in the other match, which gets underway at 4.30pm at King’s Park.

The top-of-the-table Tigers seem to have all the answers at the moment, but will need to be at their best to bring down a HKFC side coming off a 35-0 belting of Scottish.

Coach Sam Hocking is also aware Football Club are a huge attacking threat on their home deck but feels his players are ready to shine in the game-of-the-week spotlight.

“We’re looking forward to it. It just creates a little bit extra for the fixture. They throw the ball about a little bit more when they’re at home, they had a good result at the weekend and everything seemed to go really well for them. So it’s just about how we conduct ourselves on the day and whether we can close them down and play our game.”

Fly half Robbie Keith is set to return to the side after missing last week due to work commitments, while Chris Maize is also in the mix for a return.

HKFC enter the clash in red-hot form but will be without big names Gavin Hadley and Jamie Hood because of injury and Jevon Groves due to his Hong Kong coaching commitments.

Phil Bailey’s side produced one of the performances of the season thus far against Scottish and the coach says it was the players that drove a ruthless second-half push to ensure their opponents remained scoreless.

“It was the easiest half-time talk ever, I didn’t have to say a thing. The players were saying all the right things and one of the biggest goals was making sure we made it a shutout,” Bailey said.

For Bailey, it is now about consistency after two wins and two losses since they knocked off Tigers 20-15 in early October.

“Consistency is the thing,” Bailey said. “Last week means nothing if we roll out a poor performance against Tigers, who are top of the comp and rightfully so, because they are consistent.

“They probably thought they were unlucky to lose last time we played them, we had a couple lucky breaks, they had some new players. Now they have found their feet and are playing some good footy. They are the top of the table for a reason, they don’t go away.”

The Cricketers showed plenty of backbone in their last-up 27-21 loss to Tigers after a 68-17 shellacking at the hands of Scottish before the international break, but coach Brett Wilkinson knows it will be a slow burn for his side.

“It was a huge improvement from when we played Scottish and it was good to see what we trained come out,” he said. “We worked hard on our tackle, our defence, one try they scored was through our mistake and the other try they took really well.

“I was really pleased, the work rate was there and there was a bit of fight from us. But for me as a coach and as a group of players we know we have a long way to go, there is a lot of improvement still to come.”

Wilkinson hopes his star-studded forward pack featuring numerous Hong Kong representatives such as Ben Roberts, Dylan Rogers and Adrian Griffiths can match an in-form Valley tight five.

“Against Kowloon, they had a big game, up front they were hugely physical in the scrum and the maul. We are going to have to match them up front, it should be a good game,” the South African said.

Both Kowloon and Scottish entered the season under a weight of expectation but have failed to reach any great heights so far, with both languishing in the bottom half of the ladder. The loser of Saturday’s clash will fall further off the pace as the race for the league championship heats up.

Another contest heating up is the Old Mutual International Championship, where University Wizards’ record-setting five match hold on the Championship Challenge Cup is on the line on Saturday after Wizards’ bye in the round previous. They will need all of their magic as they face off against what is possibly the stiffest opposition of their recent run as they head to Happy Valley for a tie against third-placed Natixis HKFC Scorpions.