WESTERN Australia were supposed to be the pleasant little appetiser before the main dish in Hong Kong's international rugby union programme this season, the Pacific Rim Championships, which begin next week.
But the visitors were more than a mouthful as they edged through to a 25-24 win over a Hong Kong Select XV - a shadow SAR side - at Aberdeen Stadium yesterday, bringing a three-game tour to a successful end.
The defeat burst Hong Kong's confidence balloon. And it was no mere pin-prick which did the trick.
Rather, it was a huge puncture thatwill have Hong Kong's coaching team of Phil Campbell and assistant Gary Cross back at the drawing board desperately analysing what went wrong.
They won't have far to search. Poor ball retention by the forwards, a string of sorry mistakes, plus a reluctance to use the SAR's potent and attacking back three - wingers Luke Nabaro and Chris Gordon and fullback Vaughan Going - could sum up the reasons for the debacle.
'It was pretty disappointing. Even if we had won in the dying minutes, I would have regarded our performance as a loss,' said the forthright Cross. 'We will have a lot of work to do in the next week and I will be mainly concentrating on our ball retention.' The touring forwards outplayed their local counterparts quite convincingly in all departments. Outstanding were Fijian Vioni Masibaka, who won loads of possession in the lineout, the terrier-like loose play of fellow lock Trefor Thomas and the entire back row led by skipper Geoff Barnes.
Hong Kong had one brilliant period of play midway through the second half when they scored two tries in the space of three minutes.