After a disappointing first two tournaments in the Asia Womens Rugby Sevens 2016 where Hong Kong finished third in both, Hong Kong women’s sevens coach Anna Richards and her squad head to the Columbo Sevens seeking their first wins of the season over Japan and China who won in Hong Kong and Korea respectively.
Hong Kong are pooled behind China and ahead of a rapidly improving Singapore side and Sri Lanka in Pool C. Japan top Pool D along with Thailand, South Korea and India on their season debut.
Richards has selected an unchanged squad from the last outing. “We played pretty well in Korea so we didn’t see the need to make changes,” said Richards, who noted that attacking wing Aggie Poon Pak-yan is still sidelined by injury and will miss her second tournament of the series.
Hong Kong’s chances to move higher in the rankings would require either China or Japan, who have swapped the titles and runners-up spots over the first two legs, to fall outside of the top four, while Hong Kong would have to at least reach the final this weekend.
“It doesn’t seem likely due to the consistency of China and Japan this season,” said Richards. “We would have to reach the final while one of the others would have to have a steep fall. We are more focused on our own performance and consolidating our third placed finish.”
Instead, Richards will be looking for a breakout performance against first China in the pool stages. “We would like to perform better against China. From what we are hearing they will have a totally different team in Sri Lanka compared to what we have seen so far, with players being drawn from a new province. Who knows what will turn up but most of the provincial sides in China are pretty similar and we are expecting that they will again be very competitive,” said Richards.
“We want to consolidate our third place finish and also to play better than we have done so far. Training has been going well and the girls have put a lot of work into this weekend so now we just need to perform,” Richards added.
The tournament is being live streamed at www.asiarugby.com
Hong Kong: Cheng Ka-Chi, Christy (captain); Natasha Olson-Thorne (vice Captain); Nam Ka-Man; Candy Cheng Tsz-Ting; Amelie Seure; Sham Wai-Sum; Colleen Tjosvold; Kwong Sau-Yan; Lindsay Varty; Chong Ka-Yan, Adrienne Garvey, Yuen Lok-Yee.
Additional reporting and image: HKRU