Test duty calls for DeA's Canadian
First Division League champions DeA Tigers will miss livewire centre Stirling Richmond today - he will be marking Jason Robinson, who makes his debut as England captain at Twickenham this evening.
Richmond is on international duty for Canada on the left wing and one of his tasks will be to counter the threat of fullback Robinson.
'We will all get together in the bar after our game today to watch him [Richmond] and cheer him or jeer him. Last week he was playing against Italy, this week he will be up against England and next week he will be playing against Football Club,' smiled DeA Tigers' player-coach Nigel Clarke.
Richmond is one of three new signings by DeA Tigers this season. He has still not played a game in league competition - the disrupted season only began last week and even then DeA had a bye - but the club are pinning a lot of faith in him as they bid to defend their title.
'We signed him up at the end of last season. He is a friend of Rob Naylor [DeA scrumhalf] who met him at a sevens competition. Stirling will be with us until the end of the season after which he joins Canada for the World Cup Sevens. He is a very good player and contributes a lot. We have moved him from left wing to outside centre so that he will see more ball,' said Clarke.
DeA Tigers will host Synovate HKCC/Aberdeen at King's Park today. They will be missing a number of other players through injury, amongst them Chan Fuk-ping, Alex Zenovic and Jon Abel. Andrew Chambers is also away. Also missing from last season's outfit are No8 Seni Seruvakula, who has returned to Fiji, and backs Logan Kerisome (playing in Scotland) and Fred Moe, who has retired. 'We are struggling for numbers, especially in the forwards. We have also not played a game for almost a month. It has not been a great start to the season,' said Clarke.
Li Nan, a lock forward and one of the Chinese Agricultural University (CAU) players who will be playing this season under the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union's scheme to promote mainland rugby, will start on the bench for DeA.
The HKRFU has embedded 15 CAU players amongst the six local clubs. The clubs have to field them in either the First or Second Division. 'We brought 15 CAU players over for the season and they have been divided amongst the six clubs,' explained Allan Payne, HKRFU executive director.
'They will play on weekends and during the week they will go with our development officers who promote the game in schools. In this way they will not only improve their game, but also learn about development.'
Andrew Wong Kee has returned and will continue playing for Asahi Valley this season. The Hong Kong scrumhalf left at the end of last season to pursue his rugby career in England with Bedford.
But he has since returned and made an immediate impact scoring the winning try in last week's narrow 36-29 victory over Chubb PLA in Guangzhou.
