Brendan Gallagher puts focus on Hong Kong ahead of repechage
BRENDAN GALLAGHER looks ahead to next month’s World Cup repechage in Marseilles
“There is a strong Gwent Taffia at the top of Hong Kong rugby in David Rees and Leigh Jones”
They’ve already made a film on South Africa’s World Cup triumph in 1995 and shooting starts in January on Japan’s win over South Africa at RWC2015 – but I’m not sure if Hong Kong qualifying for RWC2019 wouldn’t be the greatest rugby miracle of all.
The former British Crown colony have barely 70 senior men to choose from, players who could be described as performance players, players who don’t run out on a Saturday just to work up a thirst and enjoy a decent game with mates.
The majority of players in Hong Kong’s six team Premier Division are ineligible ex-pats and transient workers from the Pacific Islands – yet next month the Dragons will arrive at the World Cup repechage tournament in Marseilles with a fighting chance of progressing to Japan. And there, should they make it, New Zealand and South Africa lie in wait, not to mention Italy and Namibia.
It would be the ultimate David and Goliath story if they could fight their way through against Canada, Kenya and Germany down in Marseilles next month... and also a bit of a textbook lesson in how small can be beautiful. Or at least very competitive. The odds are heavily stacked against the Dragons but they also have one or two aces to play.
They are a rich Union compared with many with their annual moneymaking Sevens jamboree and enthusiastic wealthy sponsors ensuring there is a considerable war chest for the national team. The list of team sponsors domestically and for the national team reads like a who’s who of banking in the Far East.
That money is not used to cynically ‘buy-up’ opportunists and blow-ins from the Southern Hemisphere and secure their services on spurious residential grounds, that they leave to certain shameless T1 nations. Rather it is utilised to maximise the preparation and conditioning of the players that are long time bone fide Hong Kong natives and residents.
Since qualifying for the repechage back in July, 30 of the 40 strong Hong Kong national squad have been put on full-time high performance contracts training Monday to Friday with Hong Kong before being released back to their domestic clubs for weekend games.
Effectively Hong Kong, for this period, are a full-time professional club side with a squad of extremely well qualified coaches looking after their every need. The other ten players, who couldn’t simply walk away from their high-powered jobs, use every lunch break and day off they can beg, steal or borrow from their sympathetic employers to join the party.
There is a strong Taffia – in fact a Gwent Taffia to be precise – at the top in operations manager David Rees and head coach Leigh Jones. The latter played a big role under Eddie Jones in helping Japan maximise their talent at RWC2015.
That duo doesn’t miss a trick and then there are promising passionate coaches like former Bath and Exeter flanker James Scaysbrook working daily with the Hong Kong players. Other top rugby operators and brains who have contributed in recent years include Joe Shaw (now at Saracens), Paul John and Peter Drewett. Hong Kong have not lacked for rugby nous and high-performance expertise.
Hong Kong’s attention to detail is meticulous. For example the brains trust sat down soon after RWC2015 ended, when the qualifying procedure for RWC2019 was announced, for a brainstorming session on how they could make it work for them. With perennial Asian champions Japan qualified as of right as hosts – and they were a top 12 side in 2015 anyway – there was a chink of light where normally the door is slammed shut.
Assuming they could get through to the repechage via the Asia Championship and a play-off against the Cook Islands – a tough ask but certainly a possibility – who would be their likely opponents?
They did the maths and it seemed like Kenya, Germany, Uruguay, possibly Russia or Zimbabwe. Therefore, they needed, with some urgency, to start arranging fixtures against some of these sides. And if matches couldn’t be fixed up they needed to stockpile footage of all the games involving those nations. No Union has more footage on prospective opponents than Hong Kong.
They needed more game time and that could be accomplished in two ways. First by undertaking matches on the road – an expensive business but they are Hong Kong, they can afford it – and second by organising their own annual quadrangular invitation tournament against teams of roughly equal ability, possible repechage teams, who struggle for meaningful tournament matches. The forgotten teams of Test rugby. Again an expensive venture and an administrative challenge but that’s what Hong Kong has always excelled at in all aspects of life.
So in the last two years they have toured Kenya not once but twice, taking the not unreasonable punt that Kenya would finish runners up in the Africa qualifying tournament behind Namibia and therefore be involved in the RWC2019 repechage. On the first tour they lost both Tests in Nairobi but last year they drew one and won the other. Last summer Kenya visited Hong Kong and lost 40-30.
In 2016 Hong Kong invited Zimbabwe to their own tournament thinking they were the side most likely to push Kenya for that African repechage spot while Russia – who were likely repechage contenders before the disqualification of Spain and Romania – were guests last year.
The maths don’t always work out. Who would have thought that Germany – initially bottom in their World Cup qualifying pool before the disqualification of Spain, Romania and Belgium – and not Russia would appear in the repechage?
And many would have tipped Canada to qualify automatically ahead of Uruguay who would therefore have headed to Marseilles. That didn’t happen either but the whole process had been invaluable, miles on the clock and the experience of short quick-fire tournaments. Hong Kong could scarcely have done more given their lowly position in the food chain to prepare for their one shot at World Cup ‘glory’.
Both Jones and Rees are believers in the old ‘7Ps’ adage we were all taught at school: Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Take their two legged play-off against the Cook Islands in the summer.
Now the Cook Islands were taking this seriously and for the first time in their history were able to get all their top players back from New Zealand and Australia – very decent club performers and even a couple of hardened Provincial players from New Zealand .
It presented quite a playing challenge as well as a logistical nightmare with the return match back in Hong Kong effectively less than six days later because of the international dateline and that included nearly 20 hours travelling time.
So the brains trust convened again at their favourite Thai restaurant. Rees remembered that Ireland, when faced with a World Cup qualifier in 2002 against Russia in Siberia on a Saturday and another qualifier against Georgia in Dublin less than a week later, stayed on Dublin time throughout their 58-hour round trip to
“Cook Islands were the litmus test as to how badly the team wanted their shot at the World Cup”
Krasnoyarsk. It would take the discipline and belief you could only really expect from a high performance professional team but if Hong Kong really aspired to a World Cup spot that’s the way it had to be. In fact this trip was to be the litmus test as to how badly the team wanted it, how deep was their passion for a shot at the World Cup.
So that’s what they did for the week long road trip, they stayed on Hong Kong time – 18 hours ahead of Rorotonga the capital of the Cook Islands so that when they returned home they could properly enjoy home advantage and were not jet lagged like the Cook Islands were bound to be.
The result was a 77-3 aggregate win over the two matches, a triumph.
As you would expect much thought has gone into their preparations for up-coming events in Marseilles with the Welsh connection again paying dividends with the recent confirmation of a ten-day camp based at the splendidly equipped University of Wales at the end of this month just prior to the tournament.
A Gwent Dragons Development XV have answered the call for a warm up game at Ebbw Vale and then a final hit out has been organised against a Crawshay’s XV at the Gnoll with the Invitation XV basically being a Welsh Premiership All-Stars side.
After that it’s off to Marseilles with the 35-strong tour party being cut to 30 although the five unlucky players will ‘holiday’ somewhere in France and keep in training to be on call if a medical replacement is required.
Luck hasn’t had a huge amount to do with Hong Kong’s’ progress so far but the cards have undoubtedly fallen nicely in the repechage.
Their current world ranking of 21 is the highest of the four teams competing which they will admit themselves is probably an anomaly with Canada still most people’s favourites, but what that ranking does offer up is the best possible itinerary for the Dragons.
They will start against bottom ranked side Germany (29), then play Kenya (28) and finish up against the Canadians (23).
In the Chinese calendar 2018 is designated as the year of the Dog. Hong Kong are intent on putting their own twist on that and making 2018 the year of the Underdog.