Hong Kong title defence begins in Korea

Hong Kong will start their Asia Rugby Men’s Championship title defence this weekend as they visit Korea for round three of the tournament. Korea v Hong Kong

With their hosts having recorded two bonus point victories over Malaysia in the opening two matches, Hong Kong will be out to get their own campaign off to a winning start.

Having won their first-ever Men’s Championship in 2018, Hong Kong reached the Rugby World Cup 2019 qualification repechage after beating the Cook Islands before narrowly missing out to Canada.

However, this year their thoughts will be on defending the title they won 12 months ago and that campaign starts on Saturday.

Their opponents, Korea, will be buoyant after their two bonus-point wins against Malaysia and will want to make their own piece of history this year.

Korea have never won the top competition in Asia but a win this weekend would give them perhaps their best chance of doing so. Ranked 30th in the world, Hong Kong sit five places above them in 25th.

“We know Hong Kong will be a step up,” said head coach Seo Chun Oh.

“It was a great result for us against Malaysia, but we did suffer some injuries.

“The nice thing is we now get to go back home for our next match and I have access to a pool of experience players, which will be important.

“Hong Kong will be much more physical, we were able to blood some youngsters in our match against Malaysia but there is a lot of work to do for this weekend.”

The match can be viewed live on Asia Rugby’s Facebook page with kick-off at 16:00 local time.

Korea v Hong Kong
KO: 16:00 (+9 GMT)
Game Live On
Asia Rugby FB Globally
STN sports (korea)
Rugby Channel (New Zealand)

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