Valley Black Ladies set sights on Grand Championship after winning league
Women's league winners eye double with Grand Championship title
Amelie Seure is a happy campaigner these days. The captain of the Societe Generale Valley Black Ladies has just led her unbeaten side to the league title.
Now the aim is to complete the double - winning the Grand Championship.
It is very pleasing especially as we not only finished unbeaten but also defeated Gai Wu twice this season
"It is very pleasing especially as we not only finished unbeaten but also defeated Gai Wu twice this season. In the past couple of seasons, Gai Wu has got the better of us and won the league," says Seure.
It has been a landmark year for women's rugby. At the start of the season, the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union decided more attention must be paid to the women's game and implemented a season mirroring the men's.
"We were keen to make sure the women's league was keeping up with the advancements we were making with the women's national team structure with the launch of the U18s national academy and U19s and U16s national team programmes," said Dai Rees, HKRFU's head of technical development and performance.
A structure similar to the men's league was put in place with performance levels (Premiership) and development (national league) while the community side of the game was also taken into account with a 10-a-side league for young or new players to develop their skills.
The highest level - the rugby sevens programme at the Hong Kong Sports Institute (Seure is part of it) - has 20 girls involved but more numbers are coming through and it was imperative a clear pathway had to be established, said Ruth Mitchell, the union's director of development.