Sevens juniors say home support crucial to sealing Asian sweep

Hong Kong’s selectors on Tuesday named a battle-hardened squad for this weekend’s Asian Rugby Football Union U20 Sevens Series tournament at King’s Park, as the city’s juniors look to complete an unbeaten 2014 season in regional competitions.

The Hong Kong U20 won the opening leg of the ARFU series in Johor Bahru, Malaysia in August and are expecting to repeat that feat in front of their home supporters this Friday and Saturday (December 19-20, 2014) in the series finale.

“Home advantage is always great,” said team firebrand Hugo Stiles. “I played in the Junior World Rugby Trophy (JWRT) and we had a great crowd for every game. Hopefully we will see similar support at King’s Park.”

Victory would see the sevens U20 side complete an unbeaten run in ARFU junior contests in 2014 – their fifteens team-mates won the Junior World Rugby Trophy’s Asian qualifier in Colombo in October with a victory which qualified Hong Kong for World Rugby’s international U20 tournament in Portugal next April.

It would also mark a clean sweep of elite men’s sevens titles in the region, as Hong Kong’s senior men recaptured the 2014 ARFU Asian Sevens Series title, also in October.

But winning this weekend won’t be easy as Hong Kong will face China, Taiwan and South Korea – all strong competitors at Asian age-grade level who will be making their 2014 series debuts – as well as Malaysia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.

“Malaysia have always been quite tough but in the second leg we have South Korea and China, who we know are quite fierce, so we expect it will be a tougher competition,” said Stiles.

Stiles, who plays for Societe Generale Valley in the HKRFU Premiership, is one of 11 players from the 12 who won the series opener in Malaysia.