The top sides in the HKRU KPMG Women’s Premiership picked up where they left off last season after tonight’s opening round of Premiership action.

Societe Generale Valley faced the stiffest challenge and handled it with typical aplomb, dispatching Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers 39-3 for their 43rd straight win in the elite ranks of women’s rugby.

Nearest challengers Gai Wu ECO Lifestyle Fitness also turned in a solid outing, dispatching Natixis HKFC 32-5. SCAA First Pacific Causeway Bay Phoenix put a heavy 60-3 loss on Comvita City Sparkle while Transact 24 Tai Po Dragon Ladies showed they hadn’t missed a step after spending last season in National League One,overturning Kowloon 12-10.

Gai Wu coach Lai Yiu-pang commended his side for a team-wide performance saying, “the whole team showed their competitive instinct and intensity. We executed the attack structures that we’ve been practising and maintained a good focus in defence.”

Lai was further encouraged by the performance of Gai Wu’s newest young players, teenaged flyhalf Jasmine Fung in particular. Fung flashed onto the scene in the off-season and after some impressive performances in Gai Wu’s pre-season fixtures – cut to the front of the queue and earned the start in her Premiership debut.

“Our young girls played with a lot of confidence and Jasmine played really well on debut. She ran the game well from fly-half and handled the pressure from Tigers well,” Lai added.

Ex-Hong Kong international Tsang Hing-hung was delighted with his Tai Po side after winning their first game on returning to Premiership level.

The first half was a defensive battle with the scores drawn at five-all at the break before the Dragons pulled out to a 12-5 lead midway through the second half.

“We struggled in the first half, especially in midfield. Kowloon werereally strong in their defence, but we regrouped and came back well in the second half.

“I thought we did really well considering we were missing eight players with two at the Asian Sevens, two injured and others on HKRU development programmes at the moment,” Tsang added.

Tai Po nearly gave the victory back to Kowloon after one of their players was sent to the sin-bin with 15 minutes remaining, an indiscretion that Kowloon made them pay for as they threw everything into their attack.

They wore down the Tai Po defence and managed to score in the final minute to pull within two points but the conversion went awry and Tai Po escaped with the victory.

Tsang is aware that his side was saved by the bounce of the ball and will need to redouble their efforts with Valley next on the slate.

“We have to focus more on the contact area. The Premiership game is a lot more physical and we lost too much possession in contact today,” Tsang said.

Kowloon coach Jonathan Ho put on a brave face after another gutting close loss for Kowloon.

“Objectively it was a really good game,” he said, “but that loss was our own fault really. We had the majority of possession, but couldn’t execute when we had the ball in their 22 and we made too many unforced errors.

“But, we played much better than I or the players expected this early in the season, both in attack and in defence, so there are a lot of positives we can take away from this loss,” Ho added.