Poly U/ Space retain Standard Chartered Varsity Cup
May 05, 2008

Saturday saw the culmination of the 2008 Standard Chartered Tertiary 15-a-side Tournament that saw eight tertiary teams take part in four finals at two different locations.

At King’s Park we had the Shield and Bowl finals and at Happy Valley were the Plate and Cup finals.

The Cup final was a fiercely contested affair with play swinging from end to end. Both teams were playing risky rugby in attack and leaving nothing to chance in defence. With the score being 0-0 at half time there was everything to play for in the second half. Poly U/ Space made a good start to the second half by spending the first 5 minutes in the HKU twenty-two but to no prevail. It was not until 15 minutes into the second half that the deadlock was broken. Indiscipline at a ruck by Poly U/Space gave HKU’s Adrien Gonzalez a penalty kick in front of the post, bringing the score to 3-0.

HKU continued to attack the Poly U/ Space line throughout the second half, with aggressive forward play and a strong run on 65th minute by winger Talan Zhou Li, who beat two defenders only to be tackled five metres short of the line. HKU recycled the ball cleanly and continued to attack the line. The Poly U/ Space defence held firm and absorbed everything the HKU team threw at them and at crucial moments in the game forced turnover ball that meant they could reprieve the pressure.

On the 70th minute, Poly U/ Space inside centre Chan Yin Hon cuts through the HKU defence beating numerous defenders to score under the posts Captain and scrum half Lai Yiu Pang adds the extras to make it 7-3.

With the final whistle approaching, Poly U/ Space forwards turn the ball over at a ruck on halfway scrumhalf Lai Yiu Pang spots a gap on the blind side and goes on a magnificent 50 metre break down the touch line to put the game beyond doubt.

Chief Information Officer of Standard Chartered Craig Armstrong and HKRFU Director of Clubs Colin Olson presented the winning team with the Standard Chartered Varsity Cup.

In the other matches, an experienced BU/ IVE’s combined side beat Open U/ IVE CW comprehensively 24-0 to take the Plate final and in the Bowl final City U/ IVE LWL/ IVE TM over came a spirited Lingnan Uni/ IVE HW side 15-0. Finally in the Shield final, CUHK overcame HKUST/ YC VTC Kln Bay.