Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers will take on Natixis Hong Kong Football Club in tomorrow’s Saxo Capital Markets Premiership Game of the Week at King’s Park (18.15).

Last week, Tigers came from behind to record another in a now familiar run of late comeback victories for the King’s Park outfit, while HKFC handed a heavy loss to Herbert Smith Freehills HKU Sandy Bay to open their season. Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish is the league’s third unbeaten side after the opening exchanges.

Sandy Bay will face off against Societe Generale Valley in the curtain-raiser at King’s Park (16.30), while Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish host for the first time this season at Shek Kip Mei when they welcome Kowloon to ‘the Rock’ at 16.30. 

The Broony Quaich will be on the line after Scottish, who held the Ranfurly Cup style silverware in the off-season, defended it superbly on Super Saturday against Valley.

Scottish have made a few changes to the squad that beat Valley with Hong Kong props Jack Parfitt and Adam Fullgrabe both starting in place of Owen Evans and Faizal Solomona who move to the bench. Lewis Anderson will start at hooker in place of the injured Dayne Jans, while back rower Luke Papworth comes into the first fifteen after impressing off the bench last weekend. Hong Kong U20s captain Mark Coebergh has been named as a replacement.

Tigers and HKFC will feel the impact of the Asia Rugby Sevens Series tournament on this weekend in Incheon, South Korea, with seven of Hong Kong’s top short form specialists from the two teams on national duty.

HKFC will be without five players in flanker Toby Fenn, fly-half Jamie Hood and outside backs Max Denmark and Max Woodward, while Tigers will miss two backline lynchpins in scrumhalf Cado Lee, Ka-to and Salom Yiu, Kam-shing.

While the 12-man squad which played in the series opener two weeks ago at Hong Kong Football Club were all rested across round one, late call-ups will see both Scottish and HKFC without a player who appeared for them in the season opener after back rowers Kane Boucaut from Scottish and Raef Morrison from Football Club were called up.

Morrison, a former U20s international who made his Hong Kong Sevens debut in 2014, returned to Premiership action last weekend after completing his university in Scotland.  Morrison was influential on his season debut, scoring Club’s first try of the year after only five minutes.

Tigers will run out a side largely unchanged from last week’s debut, but without Hong Kong international Calvin Hunter, who is out with a back strain.  New import Liam Edwards will make his first appearance for the club, starting from the bench, while Frank Solomona get the start on the wing.

Coach Sam Hocking is aware that Tigers won’t want to rely on comeback wins forever, saying, “Ideally we will get off to a quicker start in this one, but I think if we can get on top in the set-piece battle we will be in a good place.

“I will be looking for a strong start from the lads. As a home game and on the back of last week, we want to make King’s Park a difficult place for teams to come and pick up points.

“Football Club is very strong off of turnover ball and play with a fair amount of freedom. We played them in the preseason when they had the better of us, but this is the league now and things are different.”

After their disappointing opening loss to start the campaign, Hong Kong’s newest club Sandy Bay will need to back up once again as they welcome defending Grand Champions Valley.

“Last week was a tough loss, obviously,” said Sandy Bay coach Brett Wilkinson.

“We were a bit off of the game in our physicality, in possession of the ball and in our defence. But there are also a lot of positives. We had a couple of opportunities late, we didn’t take them, but if we do we are right in that game in the last 20 minutes.”

Wilkinson knows what to expect on Saturday saying, “We all know what Valley do. They are direct. They are physical. There are no easy games in this league but we will keep our focus on ourselves and improving where we can from last week’s performance.”

A former prop for Connacht in Ireland, Wilkinson knows that his side will need to establish themselves up front to have success.

“That’s where it all starts [the forwards battle]. We have got to match their physicality.”

That effort will be complicated by the loss of lock Jack Delaforce after an ankle strain in round one.  Sandy Bay have Hong Kong forwards Ben Roberts and Dylan Rogers and Hong Kong scrumhalf Liam Slater currently rehabbing as well.

Wilkinson, whose role extends far beyond the pitch, as Sandy Bay works to integrate a number of moving parts in creating Hong Kong Rugby’s newest super club, believes that progress is continuing apace.

“It’s very much a work in progress for us at the moment, but we are building for the future. Each week we are looking to get better and absolutely we are. The guys are training very well and it is now a matter of putting that into practice in the trenches.”

Complicating the efforts to gel their new-look vertical structure is the fact that Sandy Bay are effectively homeless after typhoon damage has put Aberdeen Sports Ground out of commission until November.

“We are able to practice at Aberdeen still but cannot play games at the moment. Effectively this weekend’s match is a home game but we will be at King’s Park.

“It is what it is and we just have to deal with it. I think all of these testing times will make us stronger at the end,” Wilkinson promised.

That strength in depth will likely be tested a few more times along the way in this season’s Saxo Capital Markets Premiership.

With the generous support of Saxo Capital Markets, tomorrow’s Sandy Bay v Valley and Tigers v HKFC match will be live streamed on the HKRU’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/hkrugby/.