‘TikTok and Zoom banter sessions’: Hong Kong men’s rugby squad embracing online meetings to stay sharp
- The men’s 15s squad have made the best of an unprecedented lockdown situation, says head coach Andrew Hall
- As the city gradually starts to reopen, the national squad look to the tail end of 2020 as a potential return to action
Soon after Hong Kong Football Club beat Valley 15-12 to claim the Grand Championship on February 8 to end the men’s rugby premiership season, a new campaign promptly kicked into gear.
Hong Kong men’s 15-a-side head coach Andrew Hall gathered 30 players to start training for what they hoped would be the first full season of Global Rapid Rugby. The South China Tigers, spearheaded by the Hong Kong Rugby Union, got in three solid weeks of workouts before heading off to Perth, Australia, for the team’s first test.
Hall said it wasn’t until they arrived in Western Australia about a week before their scheduled match with Manuma Samoa on March 14 (which they ended up winning 52-27) that they realised the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak.
“When we touched ground in Perth we started getting a sense of how things were spiralling elsewhere in the world and the severity of the spread of this virus,” said Hall, who took over head coaching duties last year from Leigh Jones. “So when we arrived back into Hong Kong, very quickly our training was changed from day-to-day in an environment that was typical for any professional sports team to, ‘Right, training is suspended from this point on.’ And here we sit.”
