Bird soars for Hong Kong Scottish as HKCC reclaim top spot with bonus point win

Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish fly-half Diggy Bird scored 14 points, including a first-half try, to lead his side to a crucial 24-10 away victory over Societe Generale Valley. But Scottish still lost their shared lead of the HKRFU Premiership as defending champions Leighton Asia HKCC scored a 41-10 bonus-point win against Abacus Kowloon.

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Prop Daniel Barlow and his valiant USRC Tigers team-mates couldn’t find a way past Natixis HKFC in the Hong Kong Premiership on Saturday. Photos: HKRFU

Published: 2:00am, 14 Dec 2014Updated: 2:08am, 14 Dec 2014

Bloomberg Hong Kong Scottish fly-half Diggy Bird scored 14 points, including a first-half try, to lead his side to a crucial 24-10 away victory over Societe Generale Valley.

But despite the emphatic win, Scottish lost their shared top place in the HKRFU Premiership standings as defending champions Leighton Asia HKCC scored a 41-10 bonus-point victory against Abacus Kowloon and reclaimed sole possession of the number one spot as the league enters its Christmas break.

HKCC have held the lead, or shared it, from the outset of the 2014-15 Premiership season and will take a well-earned break after they knocked the stuffing out of Kowloon with an accomplished display.

HKFC centre Lloyd Jones gets wrapped up by the Tigers defence at King’s Park.

A dogged Valley defence denied Scottish from scoring four tries and grabbing a bonus point for themselves, but head coach Craig Hammond was upbeat about the outcome.

"I'm pretty happy to come away with a 24-10 victory," Hammond said. "If you come away with a 10-7 result against these boys it doesn't matter, and we are pretty stoked to win by 14 points away.

"They threw a lot at us in the second half, so all credit to [our] boys for showing up and defending."

Bird ran in a try and knocked over the conversion and a penalty to give Scottish a 10-3 lead at the break. Valley drew level three minutes into the second half when flanker Andrew Bridle went over and fly-half Ben Rimene converted the extra points.