Warriors a ‘real boost’ to HKRU’s push for more local players, says Fan Shun-kei
Senior squad coach expects word of representative opportunities to ‘reverberate in the community’
The Hong Kong Warriors debut tour to the Philippines will attract more local players to the game, senior squad coach Fan Shun-kei said Wednesday.
The Hong Kong Rugby Union’s newest representative sides – the Hong Kong Warriors juniors and seniors – battled bravely in their first overseas internationals matches in Manila last week.
And despite a mixed bag of results against development teams from the Philippines Rugby Football Union the tour ticked all the boxes for the union, and for Fan.
“The Warriors will be a real boost to the numbers of locals playing rugby with the opportunities these players now have,” said Fan.
We identified a group of primarily local players with potential and then had the opportunity to analyse them in a highly competitive match environment
“The culture on tour was really good. There was a lot of dynamic exchange and understanding across the programme and I think this message will reverberate in the community,” Fan said of the development pathway now available to youngsters hoping to graduate to Premiership and senior representative rugby.