HKRU Premiership: Smith hat-trick the highlight as Football Club stamp authority on Kowloon
- Defending champions cement their place at top of Dettol Hong Kong Premiership, running in eight tries at King’s Park
- Centre Benjamin Smith leads romp against DAC Kowloon side missing eight starters
Benjamin Smith ran in a hat-trick, Charles Higson-Smith bagged two tries of his own, and Hong Kong Football Club cruised to a comfortable 52-10 win over a severely depleted DAC Kowloon at King’s Park on Saturday.
A game that started with just a point separating the two sides at the top of the Dettol Hong Kong Premiership finished with Football Club pulling further ahead after an eight-try mauling, and while Societe Generale Valley kept their title hopes alive with a 21-13 win over Kroll USRC Tigers, the defending champions appear to be in full control.
Not that captain Ben Axten-Burrett likes to use the title, the Football Club centre said the approach was to consider themselves just like “any other team going out there to win”.
“It’s a new season, a new team, we kind of put that [the title] to bed and go again,” he said.
There is always something extra in a top-of-the-table clash at the midpoint of any season, but Kowloon are the only side to beat Football Club so far and Axten-Burrett said that had played a part in his team’s preparations.
