Hong Kong rugby coach admits ‘we were our own worst enemies’ as fraught win over Kenya leaves host of questions

Mixed emotions for Lewis Evans, unadulterated joy for Jak Lam, and a host of questions about the future of Hong Kong’s team all swirled around The Sevens Stadium in Dubai after a fraught 22-18 win over Kenya.

Lam’s joy came from having scored the winning try on his international debut, and if the shock takes a while to wear off that may match the time it takes for the conflicting emotions Evans felt to work themselves out.

Rarely have Hong Kong played so badly, and the fact they still won says much about the resilience Evans refers to when talking about their performances.

A catalogue of unforced errors, from knock-ons to poor decision making, and a high penalty count left them trailing by 11 points at half-time on Friday night, and if Kenya’s own struggles had not intervened the gap would have been almost insurmountable.

“Winning when not playing well is definitely a positive thing,” Evans said. “But it’s mixed emotions, there’s an element of relief. Once again we’ll be talking about resilience, coming back after some negative moments, a lot of which was self-inflicted.

“Kenya certainly took one or two chances, and capitalised on certain errors, but we got ourselves into an arm wrestle and we did not want to do that. Getting into an arm wrestle with these guys is dangerous.”