GLORY beckons again for 31-year-old Mongolia Mak Bing-keung - seven years after seeing his dreams of international honours snatched away in the cruellest of fashions.
He is lined up to play at prop in what is being billed as the first true Hongkong international match - between an all-Chinese Hongkong side and the Singapore national team.
And if glory sounds too grand a word for representing the Chinese Dragons team on their current tour of Malaysia and Singapore, listen to Mak.
''That's what we play rugby for. The challenge, and the glory. It's a very special feeling to be playing for Hongkong,'' says Mak, one of a large group of Chinese judo players who turned to rugby when they became disenchanted with the way local judo was being torn apart by factional disputes.
For Mak, glory is long overdue. It could have come his way in 1986 when he was one of Hongkong's top medal hopes for the Asian Games in Seoul, competing in the judo at 72 kilograms.
But just four weeks before the Games, he broke an ankle in training. Chong Siao-chin, who he had beaten in the trials, took his place. Chong came home with a bronze medal, a national hero. Mak was a forgotten man.