A plan to rope in young exile rugby players has been put into place by the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union (HKRFU) which hopes this could provide the backbone of local teams in the future.
Rick Shuttleworth, HKRFU senior sport executive, has been handed the task of identifying Hong Kong-born students who are studying overseas and who have taken up the game.
According to Shuttleworth, the HKRFU stumbled upon the idea recently when officials were going through the team list of a top UK schoolboy side who will be stopping over next week in Hong Kong on their way to Australia.
'We were going through it and found that there were five boys in the team who were Chinese and born in Hong Kong. I had coached two of these guys four years ago,' said Shuttleworth.
'We want to build a database and keep tabs on these children. We could get them to play for us whenever the need arises.' The HKRFU's attempts to push the game amongst the local community has met with mixed success. While rugby is popular at the mini rugby and touch rugby level, the pace at which Chinese players are graduating into contact level is slower than expected.