Premiership clubs kick-off Grand Championship with scramble for semi-final berths
The race for spots in the HKRU Grand Championship final gets under way Saturday with the start of the quarter-finals.
The race for spots in the HKRU Grand Championship final gets under way Saturday with the start of the quarter-finals.
Men’s matches pit Natixis HKFC against Sabre Kowloon at Sports Road, while Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers play Bloomberg HK Scottish at King’s Park. League champions Societe Generale Valley and runners-up Leighton Asia HKCC both earned first-round byes.
The seven-team women’s competition sees HKFC Ice play SCAA First Pacific CWB Phoenix, CPM Gai Wu Falcons play Kowloon and Tigers play Transact 24 Tai Po Dragons. The winners will advance to the semi-finals where undefeated league champions Valley Black Ladies will be waiting after securing a first-round bye.
The men’s game of the week sees Tigers take on HK Scottish in a rematch of the final round of the regular season and despite his side losing 24-19 in that game, Tigers coach Craig Stewart believes Saturday’s clash will come down to who best handles the pressures of the play-offs.
We’ve struggled to put back-to-back wins together this season, so we need to focus on our own performance. We need to get our set-piece right and give our backs quality ball
“It doesn’t matter who we lost to [last week]. We’re not keen to lose again,” he said. “In this league, everyone knows everyone pretty well, so it’s more about who can handle the pressure now.
“We’d consider reaching the semi-finals a pretty fair reflection of our season. We’ve put a bit of pressure on ourselves – we’ve gone from being happy to win occasionally to now being disappointed if we don’t win all the time,” Stewart added.
