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‘There are 14 broken hearts’: Hong Kong Rugby Union licks wounds after crushing loss to South Korea leaves Olympic dream in tatters
- HKRU chief rugby operations officer Dai Rees says high-profile losses need to be mixed in with more fulsome picture
- Men’s and women’s sevens teams can still qualify for Tokyo, but it will have to be through tough international repechage tournaments
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Hong Kong Rugby Union chief operations officer Dai Rees understands the optics, but does not accept the narrative that has been painted when it comes to the city’s top team programmes.
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Four high-profile losses in the past year started with the men’s 15-a-side squad losing to Canada last November in a repechage tournament for the final slot in the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Then in April, the men’s sevens team lost to Ireland in the final of the qualifying tournament at the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens, which would have given Hong Kong a ticket to the World Series.
Then in early November the women’s sevens team lost to China in the final of an Olympic qualifying tournament, and last weekend the men lost a heartbreaker to South Korea in sudden death extra time to go to Tokyo 2020.
Rees said keying on these specific losses does not offer a fulsome picture of where Hong Kong’s rugby scene is at right now, and where it has progressed from over the years.
“They only know about those losses because we are there,” said Rees. “They never picked up on those losses because we weren’t there before.”
Hong Kong nearly scored in sudden death against South Korea, but were unable to finish it off before taking a penalty and the home side counter-attacked to seal the deal. Rees said the loss is still something they are processing as a whole.
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