Hong Kong men with third successive U20s Sevens title

Hong Kong U20s won the Asia Rugby men’s Sevens title for a third successive year with a 26-14 victory over Chinese Taipei in the final.

Luke Rae-Howard and Harry Laidler both crossed for impressive tries in the first-half, before Rae-Howard added two more to grab a hat-trick before the half-time hooter.

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Han-Zheng Zhao and Yu-Hung Liu gave Chinese Taipei a glimmer of hope in the second half, but Hong Kong’s impressive opening seven minutes did the damage.

Rae-Howard scored 21 points in the win, leaving him as the tournament’s top points scorer with 55. Laider’s first-half try meant he finished as the joint leading try scorer across the weekend with seven alongside Rae-Howard.

It was a fitting end to an enthralling weekend with Hong Kong the only side to win all five of their matches in Laos.

Earlier Rae-Howard scored twice for Hong Kong in their 17-0 victory over Thailand in the second semi-final after Liu scored two tries as Chinese Taipei beat Singapore 19-7

Thailand finished third with a 17-5 win over Singapore with tries for Artit Prerawaorasakul, Panarito Boonsnong and Supakan Netkham while after a disappointing day one, Malaysia impressed on day two to win the Plate.

The Young Hibiscus scored a total of 160 points on day two, conceding just 14 including beating Laos 53-0 in the Plate semi-final and Korea 57-14 in the final.

Shafiq Ikmal Ibrahim and Shah Izwan Nordin both scored hat-tricks against Korea taking their try tally for the day, and the weekend, to six each.

Uzbekistan recorded their first win of the weekend by beating Laos 26-5 to finish seventh overall thanks to two tries from Sirojbek Rakhmonov.

FINAL STANDINGS
1. Hong Kong
2. Chinese Taipei
3. Thailand
4. Singapore
5. Malaysia
6. Korea
7. Uzbekistan
8. Laos