Raby hopes to seize his chance
In-form winger Adam Raby will get another chance to stake a permanent spot in the Hong Kong sevens squad at the Borneo Sevens in Kota Kinabalu this weekend.
Raby - in fine form for Hong Kong Football Club - made his sevens debut for the national squad at the Shanghai Sevens in September. He starred in this year's HSBC Asian Five Nations campaign, finishing as his team's top try-scorer, and will hope to break into the abbreviated version.
Raby is the only one of three debutant players at the Shanghai tournament - the others were Gavin Hadley and Joe Li - to make it into the 12-strong squad for the second ranking event of the Asian Sevens Series.
The two-day Borneo tournament and next weekend's Singapore Cricket Club Sevens, where Hong Kong will send its 'A' team, will give head-coach Dai Rees a final chance to look at the players before announcing his squad for the East Asian Games in Hong Kong in December.
'We are entering a new and exciting period for sevens rugby,' Rees said. 'Looking at the squads for the next two sevens events, we now have more depth to choose from, as well as more balance in our teams. These are the right kind of headaches to have.'
The squad will also welcome the return of two players from injury - Mark Wright and Ed Haynes. Several key players from the team's bronze-medal effort in Shanghai have also been selected, including DeA's foursome Keith Robertson, Rowan Varty, Fan Shun-kei and Tsang Hing-hung, as well as Valley's Salom Yiu Kam-shing. Kowloon scrumhalf Jeff Wong Chun-kiu will again captain the side.
'We have a great depth of experience with players like Keith and Rowan, and are now able to welcome Mark back to the squad as he brings robustness and physicality to the squad,' Rees said.
'With the emergence of relatively new players like Simon Leung and Salom Yiu, our preparations are where we want them to be and we will be hoping to break through in Kota Kinabalu,' Rees said.
Hong Kong are pooled with South Korea, Guam and Brunei in the preliminary rounds today. The other pools comprise Japan, winners in Shanghai, with Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia; while China, Taiwan, India and the Philippines make up the third and final pool.
