League leaders Tai Po Dragons defeated Kowloon Ladies 22-12 at Shek Kip Mei, while SCAA CWB Phoenix claimed third, seeing off City Sparkle 38-8. In the Women’s Premiership, the two leaders confirmed their positions – Valley Black prevailed 30-15 after being pushed hard by USRC Tigers and Gai Wu Falcons beat HKFC Ice 29-12.
In the contest to top the Premiership Development League it was Kowloon ahead early and looking effective and full of running. On 15 minutes a forwards move was worked across the backline, then on via the forwards again with hooker Yuk Wun Yip finishing off under the posts and converted by Ho Yee Mak.
The Dragons were quick to reorganise and spent much of rest of the first half in Kowloon’s rear quarter, albeit against a determined defence. Just before the break Tai Po leveled the scores, 7-7, taking possession in midfield and passing quickly out to the left wing for Kwong Sau Yan to go over.
Three minutes into the second half and Tai Po took the lead courtesy of a wonderful solo effort by Oyinlola Kim Lee, who secured a turnover at a ruck inside her own 22 and then ran 70 metres, slicing through the Kowloon back line en route to scoring in the right-hand corner.
The rest of the second half saw Tai Po looking to play a territorial game, through sharp kicking and forcing errors and then looking to exploit them. Two similar team tries won the Dragons the game, securing the ball in the centre, working it for a couple of phases, and moving the ball quickly down the right-hand channel, once in the hands of Wong Wing Ying, and then by Chui Tung Yan in the 57th and 74th minutes respectively.
A last-minute try from Kowloon, by Hiu Tung Chan was little more than a consolation score.
Tai Po coach Tsang Hing Hung was understandably pleased with the effort “In the first half, our girls were not really concentrating, we allowed [Kowloon] too much space. But after we lost that first try, we reorganised and got our girls keeping pressure on them, and then we controlled the game through the rest of the half,” said Tsang.
“Throughout the game our ball handling and decision-making were not so good, leaving our attack weak. But our positioning was good and that kept us in control. We played pretty well after the first try.”
For Kowloon, Jonathan Ho saw an important game slip from his hands but he had no complaints about the winners. “We just gave them an early Christmas present today. The result was largely down to unforced errors that we made. Really we just killed ourselves,” he rued before adding. “Our own mistakes kept us inside our own 22, and gave too many opportunities to Tai Po.”
While Ho put the loss down to his own side’s errors, he conceded that Tai Po were on top for most of the game. “Their defence was exceptionally good, and that allowed them to put us under pressure that we couldn’t cope with. We are underperforming as a team. We won three games in a row but losing this means we aren’t good enough. This was a lesson, and we have to go away, re-work and step up again.”
In the Women’s National League 2, SCAA CWB Lammergeier showed why they head that table, retaining possession of the NL 2 Challenge Shield with a 59-5 win over City RFC Twinkles.
Additional reporting/images: hkru