Try, try, try and try again is Valley motto for big game

Valley will go all out to pile on the points against Shanghai Sports Institute in the Asian Dragons Inter City Series today at So Kon Po. The Hong Kong champions know they will need to score a minimum of four tries to get the extra bonus point and make up for their disappointing draw against China Agricultural University (CAU) in Beijing last Saturday.

Shanghai were the weakest of the three Chinese teams in last year's competition. No one knows if they have been strengthened for this season's campaign as they are running out for the first time today.

'No one has played them yet and no one really knows what they will be like. But our aim is to concentrate on our own game and ability rather than on the opposition,' said player-coach Paul Dingley.

Valley, boosted by the return of Dingley, will have to take every single scoring opportunity that comes their way today if they are to wipe away the memory of the 13-13 draw with CAU.

The university side are currently top of the six-team standings with six points followed by Valley on two. Like Shanghai, Hong Kong's other team, DeA, and sole Taiwanese representative Tao Yuan County will only kick off their campaign this weekend. DeA are away to the PLA Sports Institute in Guangzhou today while Tao Yuan County, using Hong Kong as the venue for all their away games, will meet CAU at Happy Valley tomorrow.

The last time Dingley ran out, he thought it would just be a brief interlude against Football Club in the playoffs. 'I only wanted 10 minutes of rugby, but I got more than I bargained for,' said Dingley, who will start today at No 8 instead of Clinton Heaps.