Hong Kong heartbreak as sevens dream ends cruelly

Keith Robertson was heartbroken. Salom Yiu Kam-shing cried in the arms of his mum. Rowan Varty and the rest of his team also shed tears in the dressing room.

Hong Kong's dreams of clinching a core-team berth in the elite HSBC Sevens World Series were cruelly ended when referee George Clancy brandished a killer red card to playmaker Robertson after only 30 seconds of their crucial quarter-final encounter against Japan.

The referee judged that Robertson's first hit of the game was a spear tackle - where a player is lifted off the ground and driven head to the ground. The laws call for immediate banishment. It was Robertson's first red card in six years of playing at the Hong Kong Sevens, and the first of his sevens career.

'I'm sorry if it was dangerous. It wasn't meant to be so. I was so fired up and I thought I had put in a great hit,' the pint-sized Robertson said. 'I couldn't believe I was sent off. I should have got a yellow card. It is really heartbreaking, as so much was riding on that match.'

Down to six men, Hong Kong heroically defied the odds, even though they lost skipper Varty a minute later after he clashed heads with teammate Kwok Ka-chun, both trying to stop a Japanese attack.

Having lost their top two players so early in the game, Hong Kong responded magnificently.