Covid-19 has been huge challenge for city with sports sector suffering more than most, now a clearly defined strategy is needed to unite government’s three broad goals – and keep sport alive and well.

There has been a changing of the guard this summer up at The Rock in Shek Kip Mei with three key figures in the remarkable success story that is Hong Kong Scottish RFC having hung up their claymores and relinquished the old bagpipes.

The internet connection between Fairfax in Virginia and Hong Kong has been buzzing overnight with the news that our disciplined services men’s sevens team struck gold at the World Police and Fire Games.

In recent weeks there have been a fair number of column inches devoted to the debate over the number of “foreigners” being selected for Hong Kong’s national football and rugby teams, and by and large this is quite understandably regarded in a negative light, blocking the pathway for local players to representative level. However ...

The dust has started to settle on the 2015 Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens, and already feedback forms are being completed and wash-up reports compiled as we identify what went well and what we can improve for 2016.

Remember the Madonna movie Desperately Seeking Susan? Well, we at the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union are currently seeking Susan or Jane, Abi or Agnes, or any other young lady who is interested in trying out for the Hong Kong national women’s sevens programme.

The 133rd Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge universities takes place at Twickenham on Thursday and whilst it no longer attracts quite the crowd it once did, the fixture still holds a special place in the global rugby calendar and will be shown live here in Hong Kong.

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of emceeing a question-and-answer session with Scottish rugby legend Craig Chalmers. The occasion was the third members luncheon arranged by Bloomberg HK Scottish rugby club, and the audience comprised many of the great and good of our local rugby community.

With the kick-off of Hong Kong's own domestic rugby competition still a few weeks away, rugby fans will be eagerly awaiting this weekend's opening fixtures of England's Aviva Premiership and the newly branded Celtic league the Guinness Pro12. With our local clubs increasingly boasting veterans of these competitions, I thought I'd get the inside scoop and some predictions from those in the know...

One of the perks of working in the sports industry is the occasional opportunity to meet a childhood hero or modern day athletic legend. Not that I consider myself a celebrity jock strap-sniffer, but I must confess it is interesting to meet in the flesh those whose careers one normally follows on TV or in the pages of the SCMP.

The usual excited shrieks of youngsters attending summer sports programmes in the vicinity of Wylie Path in Ho Man Tin have been temporarily replaced by the clatter of heavy machinery as the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union replaces the three artificial pitches at its King’s Park Sports Ground.

Organising the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens is a task most easily equated to painting Scotland’s 2.5-kilometre Forth Rail Bridge – no sooner have you completed the job than you have to start again. Although on the plus side with the Sevens, you don’t often get orange paint on your clothes.

The local rugby community has been and continues to be spoiled by a succession of international competitions here in Hong Kong. However, the ‘game’ doesn't always end with the final whistle.

Last week’s numerous Burns Supper celebrations were a reminder of how expatriate social and business groups have long played a prominent role in Hong Kong’s societal fabric – from the swirling kilts and skirling pipes of the St Andrew’s Society to the hanky-waving Morris Dancers of the St George’s Society.

Every year our domestic rugby league takes a break over the festive period to allow for holidays and guilt-free consumption of mince pies and Quality Street, but not all competitive activity ceases as Hong Kong's Disciplined Services host their annual fixture against the People’s Liberation Army for the TK Lai Cup.

I never met Nelson Mandela, I'm not a South African, and I haven't even read Long Walk to Freedom, and yet like millions of others around the world my life has been touched by the words and actions of this great man.

The buzz is back in Dubai – that was the message on everyone's lips after an almost perfect weekend of rugby at “7he Sevens” complex. The sun shone, the corporates wined-and-dined, and an estimated 50,000 spectators on the final day enjoyed some fabulous rugby.

Dubai and its sevens tournament are giving me rather mixed emotions. I suspect that as a proud member of the organisational crew for our own Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens I was hoping my first experience of this famed rugby festival in the Middle East would be mildly negative and leave me able to safely declare that it wasn’t a patch on our own event ... but I'm just not sure.