Hong Kong A Team ties with Claremont College
June 04, 2008

The Hong Kong A Team concluded its three Test series last night with by tieing 10-10 with visiting team Claremont College, USA.

This is the first time Hong Kong has played the college team from the town community in eastern Los Angeles County.

“A draw is a draw; it's neither good nor bad,” said team captain John Hamilton. “It was a disappointing end for us. We need to take what we can from the game and learn from it.

“It was a unique and interesting game because it was pouring down at the time and kick-off was delayed by half an hour because of the lightening, which shortened our warm-up period. Both teams were on the same boat. There were puddles everywhere,” he said.

Hong Kong’s Niall Rowark led the way by scoring the first try of the match, bringing the score 5-0 at half-time. Wan Kwok-kwong scored a second try for Hong Kong in the second half, but the Claremont team upped their tempo as well, scoring two tries, taking the score to 10-10 at the final whistle.

“In regards to level of play, the team has improved over the past weeks. We need to take more of our game play into actual performance. We need to maintain and spread the ball around and play smartly in those wet conditions.

“[The Claremont team] were quite good; better than we had expected. We had expected them to be big players – and they were big. We have to give them the credit, because they turned up a notch in the last 10 minutes, even scoring a try in the last minute,” said Hamilton.

The Hong Kong A team also played two Test matches against Chinese Taipei last week, also at King’s Park. Chinese Taipei won the first match 32-17, and the two teams drew 22-22 in the second.

ENDS

The Hong Kong A squad:

1. John Hamilton (Captain)
2. Luke Berry
3. Tom Mutch
4. Chan Ka-man
5. Andy Yuen
6. Andrew Bridle
7. Will Wong
8. Graham Manchester
9. Charles Cheung
10. Niall Rowark
11. Cosmo Ng
12. Ed Rolston
13. Mike Fung
14. Adam Raby
15. Tim Sutton

16. Alex Yuen
17. Joe Chan
18. Lee Cheuk-yin
19. Wan Kwok-kwong
20. Max Woodward