Hong Kong’s campaign for a sixth straight Asia Rugby U19s title got off to a rough start after losing 17-13 to South Korea last night in Taipei.  Hong Kong will need to bounce back strongly - and quickly - over their remaining two matches against Sri Lanka on Saturday and Chinese Taipei on 18 December.

Sri Lanka who fell to the hosts in another close-run affair, 18-15, are in third place on the table ahead of Hong Kong whose points differential is -4 compared to the Tuskers’ -3.  Taipei top the table ahead of South Korea on a similar margin.

“It was a very frustrating game in that we didn’t execute the way we wanted or needed to. Physically we were dominated a bit, especially at the breakdown, and we failed to take our chances when we had them. We also let them off the hook continuously with penalties when they were in their 22,” said a disappointed head coach Stephen Dowse.

“There are no unbeatable teams at this level, and we’ve learned that lesson the hard way now. We now need to get maximum points from our remaining games,” added Dowse, who chalked up the loss to some extremely poor execution by Hong Kong on the day.

Reinforcing his point was the fact that Hong Kong breached the Korean 22-metre zone on 11 occasions, but came away with only a single try to winger Sam Down late in the match.

The sloppy showing started early on as Hong Kong conceded six penalties in the opening 12 minutes.  Fortunately the defence kept Korea off the board and Hong Kong would even score first with fly-half Paul Altier converting a penalty in the 25^th minute to take a 3-0 lead.

Korea quickly responded with two tries over the next ten minutes to take a 14-3 advantage into the break.

Altier closed the gap after four minutes of the second half with his second penalty strike, narrowing the lead to eight points, as Hong Kong trailed 14-6 with 36 minutes left in the match. 

South Korea converted their first penalty shortly thereafter to edge further ahead, 17-6, before Hong Kong collected its only try in the 68^th minute through wing Sam Down.  Altier’s conversion was true and Hong Kong had a brief glimpse of a memorable comeback with ten minutes remaining, but couldn’t breach the defence again over the final stretch, falling to their first loss in this competition since 2013.

“We almost beat ourselves really in the way we weren’t executing, and giving the ball away cheaply at times or giving them easy outs when they were in their own 22.

“We were in there 22, 11 times but only came away with one try. That is simply not a good enough conversion rate for that level of dominance. Fair play to Korea, they worked hard for each other and deserved that win, but for us it was very frustrating.”

Unimpressed by the squad’s readiness for the opener, the coaching team is likely to ring the changes for Sri Lanka.

“Definitely there will be changes. After a performance like that there has to be some consequences. Some of the players did not put in the performance we expect and our work rate and intensity was not there. The rest of the guys have been training well and they deserve their opportunity.”

Hong Kong will have a chance for a do-over according to Dowse who says that the squad needs to produce the type of performance they had planned for Korea against Sri Lanka.

“Sri Lanka lost a similar game as us, against a very physical Taipei team, whose line speed put them under pressure. We are going to need the same things we needed against Korea - to go out and control the ball, win the collisions and play to our structure.

“We can’t worry about or control what the others are going to do now. It is purely down to our own performance and ability to execute.

“That was a hard learning for the boys to take, but we had a positive review of our performance and preview of Sri Lanka today, and if we can keep our execution and focus intact then the performances will follow,” Dowse added.