Kiwi to hang up his boots following this year's showpiece after arriving as a Hong Kong 'import' in 1994

Rodney McIntosh is player, coach and Hong Kong Rugby Football Union (HKRFU) director. When the man-for-all-positions takes the field at the Hong Kong Sevens this weekend, he will be the only player from the 24 teams to hold down a union job. And an elected one at that.

Wrapped up in this cloak of respectability, McIntosh has come a long way. A far cry from 1994, when he came to town and was soon branded as an 'import' by a section of the rugby-playing public in Hong Kong.

The 33-year-old McIntosh makes no bones about the fact that rugby brought him to Hong Kong. 'I wanted to play in the 1995 World Cup and this town offered me the chance.' That he subsequently fell in love with Hong Kong and stayed on is a tale common to many expatriates.

The Credit Suisse First Boston Hong Kong Sevens will bring the curtain down on a colourful career which serves as a rough guide to the local game's often contentious recent history.

For when the talented centre from Waikato, New Zealand, arrived in town seven years ago, Hong Kong rugby was still very much in the grip of a century-old tradition where the game was ruled by the few, for the few.

The development programme that was jump-started in 1988 was in full flow. But at the very top, in playing circles and amongst officialdom, rugby was still an enclave for expatriates.

Traditionally players had come to Hong Kong mainly for work reasons - from the soldiers plucked from the streets of Belfast and Londonderry and sent on an enviable tour of duty to the mystical Far East, to the policemen and lawyers recruited on the streets of London and Sydney.