Rugby Academy | Bats ups and downs at Hong Kong Festival

Macau Bats played their final Hong Kong festival last weekend. Hosted by the Hong Kong Football Club at Happy Valley, the Bats were keen to bounce back from a slightly off-key group of games at their last festival.

First up were the U6s, winning their first two games, 4-2 against Sandy Bay and 5-2 over the Football Club. This was followed by a high-scoring 5-5 draw against Sai Kung Stingrays and a tight 5-4 win over Tuen Mun Sharks to finish the day unbeaten.

The U7s started with a 2-2 draw against Sandy Bay followed by two defeats against Stingrays (1-2) and Football Club (0-3) before turning in their strongest performance with a 3-1 win over Shatin Sha Pei.

The U8s scored a remarkable 32 tries in their four matches, winning 6-4 against South Lantau Buffalos and 9-5 over Tin Shiu Wai Eagles before two high scoring draws with Football Club (7-7) and USRC Tigers (10-10).

The U9s recorded a resounding 7-0 win over USRC Tigers in the first division before losing 3-4 in an entertaining game with Valley Fort. The team had been working on their tackling technique and it was clearly paying dividends. Although the Bats lost their final two matches against a very strong Sandy Bay (2-7) and Football Club (1-6), the team played very well and both games were closer than the final shorelines suggest.

The U10s were also playing in the top division for their age group and put in a good performance against Football Club before going down 2-4. Their second game was against Singapore Rugby Club who quickly ran into a 1-3 lead. However, the Bats showed great determination and a lot of skill to comeback and win the game 4-3. Next up was a tough game against familiar foes, Sai Kung Stingrays. Despite some good tackling and cover defence the Bats lost 0-3 to a very good Stingrays team.

The final game against USRC Tigers saw Macau prevent their opponents from scoring during the first half and then run in some excellent tries to finish up winners by 5-0.

The main competition of the day was the Richard Hawkes Cup for the U12s. Macau had been seeded ninth and drawn against three 1st division teams in their group. This made the first game against fellow 2nd division Valley Fort particularly important and the Bats duly chalked up an impressive 2-1 win.

There followed three matches against top tier opponents and although the Bats lost all, they were tight, competitive games – USC Tigers (1-2), Sai Kung Stingrays (0-1) and Sandy Bay (0-3). This put the Bats in the Plate semi-final against Discover Bay Pirates, another fine performance saw the Bats remain in the game until the last moments when the Pirates scored two late tries to win 2-5. Some small consolation would be gained from the fact that the Pirates went on to win the Plate.

Next up for the Bats is hosting a U13 7s competition at TIS on Saturday and competing in the U16s HK 7s on Sunday. The Bats will host their main rugby festival on the 13th April at the TIS field. Donald Shaw, Hong Kong, Special to MDT