The HKU Sandy Bay annual rugby tour for U8s to U12s took place last weekend to Singapore where a contingent of 173 players, coaches, parents and supporters travelled for a magnificent weekend. Centaurs Rugby Club hosted their tournament on their home pitches, which were a combination of mud and grass – somewhat a novelty for our touring players.

After a great Friday afternoon pool session, whereby people from all ages groups got to know each other, there were various casual dinners arranged and players given an early night due to the early Saturday morning buses departures to the ground for some age groups.

The format of the tournament in all age groups was that Saturday was about determining whether you were competing for the Cup, Plate, Bowl or Jug on Sunday. We saw some excellent rugby but the most pleasing aspect was the friendships made amongst our own touring group and also with various Singapore players/parents. In particular, we have witnessed a great friendship developed between our U9s and their opponents from Centaurs. After an excellent team dinner on Saturday night where each age group recapped the highlights and lowlights of their days, some parents stayed up to watch the Australia v England international rugby match. Surprisingly, most of those staying up were English, with many of our Australian tourists seemingly resigned to the result prior to kick-off.

Sunday saw some great rugby from our HKU Sandy Bay teams. Maybe teams had been overawed a little on Saturday, but certainly, on Sunday all of our teams played their best rugby. Our touring teams achieved the following results:

The U12s (with some assistance from HKFC and SKS players) won the Cup;
The U11s finished fourth overall;
The U10s won the Jug after two very intense games on Sunday;
The U9s made it to extra time in the Jug final, but given the other scored first didn’t walk away with the silverware; and
The U8s (who had two teams entered) won the Shield and didn’t collect more silverware due to a Singapore tie-break system, which remains a mystery to all of us.

The rugby was fantastic and our final results were very good. However, the highlight of the tour was the social side both at a player and parent level. Many friendships were initiated around the pool and over dinners/drinks given the touring experience provides an environment above and beyond simply seeing each other on Sunday mornings down at Stanley Ho. Thank you to the 173 people that toured and particular thanks to all the coaches – magnificent effort!

We look forward to touring again next year and hope to make things bigger and better this year so that we grow our annual international tour into a key component of playing rugby at HKU Sandy Bay Rugby Football Club.

Peter Glanville
Mini Chairman
HKU SandyBay RFC