Two out of two - defeats, that is. Hong Kong's Asian Championship (ARFT) squad lost their second practice game on the trot, this time to CBRE Club, who baptised their new synthetic turf pitch at Sports Road with a 13-8 win last night. Coming in the wake of last week's 24-13 defeat at the hands of a combined DeA Tigers/Asahi Valley outfit, yesterday's defeat underlines the tough times that await the SAR when they host the biennial Asian tournament at the end of this month. And to rub it in, the First Division Grand champions were not even up to full strength, missing more than eight players who were either unavailable or playing in the Hong Kong jersey, among them Paul Dingley - who had a stormer - Tom Cameron, Ben Harris and Warren Warner. 'We were stretched thin to field this team. A number of our front-liners are missing, but it gave us the opportunity to promote competition between our firsts and seconds. There were a number of players from the seconds who put their hands up tonight,'' said Club coach Rodney McIntosh. Fullback Warrick Dent scored the opening try that gave Club first blood. Dragons flyhalf Richard Lamming converted that try and knocked over two penalties as Club took a 13-0 lead. Harris put over a penalty and Dingley scored a try just after half-time, but Hong Kong lacked penetration as they fell short once again.
