National Games rugby sevens: Hong Kong 1 win from gold – and want perfection too
Hosts’ men storm past Jiangsu into final, and say they want to ‘put on a show for Hong Kong’
Hong Kong’s men’s rugby sevens team will play for National Games gold on Friday – and warned after Thursday’s semi-finals that they want to claim it in style.
Perfection was the target once they had swept past Jiangsu 33-19 to warm a sparse crowd at Kai Tak Stadium, on a day when the city’s women also put on a statement performance. Their resurgence came too late to salvage their medal hopes.
They will contest fifth place on Friday after their day two recovery left them agonisingly short of a semi-final berth. Nothing was left to doubt by the men, though, and they were in no mood to let standards slip when they face Shandong, who overcame Beijing.
“The focus is ‘improve again’,” Max Denmark said. “We’re always chasing that 18-minute performance. We want to put together 18 minutes that we can almost call perfect, and be proud of.”
“We haven’t actually got to our best yet,” Liam Herbert said. “We’ve shown glimpses here and there, but there’s a lot more we can show, and if we give 110 per cent tomorrow, we’ll really put on a show for Hong Kong.”
Another clinical performance earlier had seen off Inner Mongolia 43-5.