Hong Kong coach Gareth Baber keeps faith with tried and tested squad for Thailand Sevens
Tyler Spitz replaces injured Tomasi Lawa in the only change to ‘bitterly disappointed’ China Sevens line-up
Hong Kong sevens coach Gareth Baber has kept faith with his squad for this weekend's Thailand Sevens in Bangkok, despite the side suffering their first Asia Rugby Sevens Series defeat in more than a year at the China Sevens three weeks ago.
In the first of three tournaments in the 2015 series, in Qingdao, Hong Kong lost to the hosts in the quarter-finals and ended up winning the Plate competition.
However, Baber retained 11 of the 12-man team from the series opener. Hard-tackling back Tyler Spitz is the only change, coming into the squad after Tomasi Lawa was injured in training.
Tyler is very solid defensively and he has a lot of physicality to his game, as people saw when he made his fifteens debut [for Hong Kong] against Russia
"We were bitterly disappointed after China, so it was a pretty introspective mood for two or three days when we returned," said Baber.
"But we regrouped and kept things in proper perspective. We lost one game, our first in over a year at this level, and against a team in China that we hadn't lost to in a long while. But that happens in sport.
"We know we need to pick ourselves up and go out and perform this weekend in Thailand. We identified some issues from the first tournament, particularly in our defence, and we have worked hard on that in training.
"Training has been good and the only black mark was the injury to Tomasi. But it's next man up and Tyler adds a lot to the squad," Baber said.