The 2016-17 season of the Women’s Premiership kicked off with a Super Saturday showcase at King’s Park with six of the seven Premiership teams in action, including Premiership debutants City Sparkle, last year’s League and Grand Champions Valley Black and the runners-up in both competitions Gai Wu Falcons.
Last year’s top two were convincing form with muscular bonus point wins on the opening weekend. In the season’s opening match Valley dispatched CWB Phoenix 45-7 in an impressive eight try performance even though three of its top players were absent representing Hong Kong in the Asian Sevens series.
The absence of Valley’s large contingent of Hong Kong representatives, combined with a number of retirements in the off-season, has catalysed a youth movement in the Valley with numerous players called up from last year’s second side Valley Red.
“I’m really pleased with our performance today,” said Sam Feausi, the long-time Valley star, who is serving as assistant coach for the team this season. “We showed good structure despite having a few girls missing. We had seven or eight players from last year’s second team in the first side today and it’s good to see the young girls stepping up.”
Their ability to transition to Premiership level will play a decisive factor in Valley’s ability to defend its two-season long unbeaten streak once the top sides face each other.
“We are confident, but this season is going to be much more competitive. Everybody is pretty strong. All of the teams are missing their sevens girls but the results are still really convincing,” Feausi added.
Gai Wu Falcons soared to their biggest opening day victory in the day’s second match dispatching Kowloon 56-0 despite lacking four of their stars including Hong Kong captain Christy Cheng Ka-chi who were also on international sevens duty.
In the final match of the day, USRC Tigers withstood a fierce early charge from City Sparkle before overpowering the Premiership debutants 45 – 3.
Tigers coach Liu Kwok-leung said City’s intensity troubled his side early on: “They put us under a lot of pressure and it took us a while to get settled in and switched on. Their defensive line speed is good and stopped us from organising. They have good potential to compete this season.
“But eventually we settled a bit and I was pleased that we kept our structure and performed what we have been training,” Kwok added.
City coach Fung Kai-hang said, “Tigers are one of the top teams and they played well. We have set some goals for the league this season. There are games we target to win, games we target to compete in and games that we can use as a learning curve.
“This was our first Premiership match and the girls really felt the difference in intensity. It’s more confrontational and the speed and strength of the game is much better at this level, but we learned a lot today.
“We need to keep working on our set piece and the contact area. We play Football Club next and they have a big pack and will be similar to Tigers. But the girls are really positive. We gave up a lot of tries tonight but they kept working hard and going forward,” said Fung
For the full weekend’s results click here
Additional reporting and image: HKRU