Round three of the Rugbypass.com Premiership saw Natixis HKFC score its first win of the season, Societe Generale Valley continue its unbeaten run and Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers land a stirring come-from-behind 28-22 win over Herbert Smith Freehills HKCC.

HKFC accounted for Kowloon 23-12 in a dour affair at King’s Park, while Valley sent a warning to the rest of the competition with a resounding 31-17 win over the in-form Bloomberg HK Scottish at its home ground in Shek Kip Mei.

Valley head into the week’s break sitting pretty on top of the table with three wins from three starts and coach Andrew Kelly was thrilled with his side’s effort.

“It’s our first five point win, so absolutely pleased,” he said. “We managed to hit the areas we wanted to and we had some individual bits of good play that led to tries. We wanted to use the width and get it to the wide channels and then play from there. I think we did that in spells but we switched off a few times.”

The first 20 minutes were a genuine arm wrestle, with Scottish using the support of its healthy home crowd to wear down an early Valley lead.

After the visitors skipped out to an 8-0 advantage thanks to a Doug Fluker try and a Matt Rosslee penalty, Scottish hit back through a try to in-form recruit Ewan Miller. Fly half Gregor McNeish added the extras before also booting a penalty to give his side a 10-8 lead.

That was the last of the first-half highlights for the hosts, with Max Woodward and Ryan Meacheam showing their class as Valley pulled away.

“The big thing at half-time for me was that we had to give them a game,” Scottish coach Craig Hammond said. “I think set-piece wise we did alright and it was pretty even up front, which was good.”

Woodward sent Fluker over for his second try and Rosslee continued to split the sticks as Valley set up a 21-10 half-time lead.

Meacheam, who had looked menacing before the break without reward, busted the Scottish defence open early in the second half, running on to his own ball for a superb try.

Scottish put the brakes on just as Valley looked like blowing the margin out even further, holding strong for much of the second half.

“We did some really good things,” Hammond said. “We controlled the game in certain areas, we put a lot of phases together and we defended really well. But we gave them too many opportunities, we let them get within 30 metres of our line and they scored two tries and two penalties.”

A try to Valley hooker Dayne Jans pushed the margin as wide as 21 points at one point, but the likes of Conor Hartley and Lachlan Chubb continued to work hard for Scottish. Chubb was rewarded for his relentless effort with a try and McNeish’s conversion trimmed the difference to 14 points.

That was where the scoring ended, with Valley snuffing out any chance of a Scottish comeback with stout defence to end proceedings.

“Today was a squad effort,” Kelly said. “We’ve got a lot of injuries and the boys pulled together and the bench again was great.”

Tigers trailed by as much as 16 points in the first half against HKCC and were still 12 points behind at the break, before launching an inspired run. Tries either side of half-time to Alex Woodburn started the comeback and the sublime kicking of Liam Gallagher and the creativity of second-half try scorer Salom Yiu Kam-shing finished the job.

“Keeping them to zero in the second half was really pleasing,” Tigers coach Craig Stewart said. “We probably just proved ourselves a point that when we control things on our terms, we put pressure on other teams and we get points as a result.”

Gallagher finished with a total of 11 points from two conversions and three penalties, while Stewart was full of praise for Yiu, who crossed from Valley over the summer.

“Salom was outstanding,” he said. “Every opportunity he had, he carried really hard, he went forward. It was probably a couple of things that he did that sparked our guys up a bit.”

Tigers jump to second behind Valley with the win. HKCC sits in third spot despite its second loss of the season and Scottish are two points further back in fourth. HKFC’s breakthrough win saw it escape the foot of the ladder, with Kowloon dropping to last.

After starting slowly and allowing Kowloon to draw first blood through a try to Jamie Tsang, HKFC hit back through Jevon Groves and two penalties and a conversion from Max Page. With HKFC leading 13-7, Ben Madgwick crossed for Kowloon to reduce the margin to a single point at the break.

With the game in the balance, Mitch Andrews found the line to give HKFC some breathing room and Page slotted the final five points to round out his side’s 23-12 victory.