Hong Kong held their heads high as they came within two points of Russia in a stirring second-half comeback before slipping to a 39-27 defeat in the second game in the two-Test series at Hong Kong Football Club on Saturday.
Russia won the inaugural Ustinov Cup with a clean sweep having won the first test last week, 31-10. But this was closer as Hong Kong’s dangerous backline proved they can operate with the barest of possession, but still pose maximum threat.
Two tries to right winger Tom McQueen, one in each half, plus tries by centre Max Woodward and left winger Rowan Varty – playing his 40th international – resulted in a much-better scoreboard underlying the vast strides the team had made over the week.
Despite losing both tests to Russia, ranked 20th and three places above Hong Kong, there was an air of satisfaction around head coach Andy Hall. “There are many positives we can take from this series, primarily the fact that we have capped ten new players for Hong Kong so that is a massive plus,” Hall said. “We will also take aspects of our performance tonight as a positive. There were aspects of the match where we saw evidence of the new systems we are putting in place so that’s another step forward.
“Probably the biggest thing the players will take out of this is that appreciation of what the level we need to aspire to really is. Now it is up to them to take that intensity that they have experienced back to their clubs and to maintain it ahead of the Asian Championships next spring,” Hall added.
Russia began forcefully and once again dominated the set pieces with their huge forwards controlling play superbly. Winger Igor Galinovsky touched down twice in the first quarter to give his side the early ascendancy, his brace sandwiching McQueen’s first-half try.
Russia – using the blindside cleverly, scored from a five-metre scrum when skipper Vasily Artemyev crossed over to extend the lead to 22-10. They increased the lead further right on halftime when lock Nikolay Serkov picked up from a ruck and scored from close range to push the score to 29-10.
Jamie Hood who had added the extra points to McQueen’s try, knocked over a penalty as Hong Kong defended grimly.
It was a different story in the second half with Russia losing lock Andrei Garbuzov to the sin-bin for a late hit on Hong Kong captain Paul Dwyer. Hong Kong capitalised superbly running in three tries in his absence, McQueen completing his brace, along with tries to Max Woodward and Rowan Varty, as Hong Kong came roaring back to 29-27.
“We got a tune up, and rightly so, from the coaches at halftime. We simply didn’t show up for long periods of the game but the boys dug in and came off with a flier in the second-half,” said Dwyer who was standing in as captain for the injured Nick Hewson.
All the tries came from broken play with the ball being punted downfield and the Hong Kong sevens stars winning the race.
But order was restored quickly and Russia was helped when Hong Kong played a man down for the next twenty minutes after first flanker Bill Brant, and then substitute prop Jack Parfitt were sin-binned.
To rub salt on the wound, Hong Kong also conceded a penalty try after the Japanese referee decided they had pulled down a scrum with Russia five metres from their line.
“All credit to Hong Kong for coming back strongly in the second half which was a nightmare for us. But we showed good character to grind it out,” said victorious captain Vasily Artemyev.
