Dominant Hong Kong juniors sweep second successive Asian sevens title
Try-machines James Christie and Tim Evans cap another ‘perfect’ series for the unbeaten hosts at King’s Park
Hong Kong wrapped up another perfect Asia Rugby U20 Sevens Series at King’s Park on Saturday, beating Malaysia 52-7 in the Cup final to successfully defend their regional crown and maintain an impressive unbeaten run spanning two years of the competition.
In a repeat of the 2014 regional series, the Hong Kong Rugby Union’s junior men’s team won both legs of this year's circuit – the U20s Johor Sevens and this weekend's Hong Kong tournament – without losing a match.
“It feels amazing,” said skipper Richard Lewis. “The boys performed really well and we’re happy with our performance. We really feel that we deserved to be Asian champions again.”
WATCH: Highlights from the final day’s action at the Asia Rugby U20 Sevens Series tournament in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong women’s U20 squad completed an impressive debut in the series at the same time Saturday, taking third place in the second leg at King’s Park to finish 2015 series runners-up behind Japan.
Playing in front of strong home support on the second day of the Hong Kong tournament, the hosts' U20 men ran rampant through their regional opposition – dumping UAE out in the quarter-finals 41-7, before blanking China 22-0 in the semis.
Their annihilation of Malaysia in the Cup final emphasised Hong Kong’s dominance and brought the squad’s final points differential for the weekend to plus-225 (253 for, 28 against).
For influential captain Lewis this was his final U20s series as he and a number of team-mates – vice-captain Eric Kwok Pak-nga, Calvin Hunter and Hugo Choi Ho-ching among them – will now graduate to senior rugby.
HKRU head sevens coach Gareth Baber, who has been talent-spotting during the Asian U20 series, commented: “Both Hong Kong teams [men and women] have done a great job over the last few days and last week in Malaysia as well.
"This is the purpose of these tournaments, for us to see how these players perform at the Asian level. And there are a few in these squads who with a little bit of development and coaching will be getting into a position to compete with the seniors.”
HKRU women’s development manager Sam Feausi said of the squad’s performance: “We’re extremely proud of how the girls played today [Saturday]. They didn’t let their heads down after yesterday. They applied what we discussed last night and we saw the results out on the pitch.
Please click on the link to see the full 2015 Asia Rugby U20 Sevens Series results.