Hong Kong thump Lankans 36-0
Sri Lanka's Avishka Lee looking for a break against Chinese Taipei yesterday
Sri Lanka faced intensity, brutality and total isolation as Hong Kong powered their way to become unbeaten champions of the Asian Under-20 7s Rugby Series with a thumping 36-0 win at Kings Park in Hong Kong yesterday.
Both Hong Kong and Sri Lanka were before the final face-off but evidently the hosts had the upper hand and were the favourites.
Throughout the tournament Hong Kong scored 223 points and conceded just five to Chinese Taipei in the Cup semi-final played earlier on. Eventually they ended with an unblemished record with Kit Fong and Paul Altier finishing off as the top two points scorers of the two-day tournament. Fong had 57 points to his name from 11 tries and a conversion to lead the list while Altier had 48 points, from four tries and 14 conversions.
Sri Lanka skipper Naveen Henakankanamge finished off third in the list with 45 points from nine tries as he led Sri Lanka to the final, despite failing to defend the title. The young Tuskers too went in the final with an unbeaten record, but not as impressive as the hosts and eventual winners Hong Kong. Sri Lanka thrashed Korea in the Cup semi-final by 33-5 after winning all their matches of Pool ‘A’. The Islanders were to face Chinese Taipei yesterday morning in their final group game and they walked out victorious by 28-14 after a tough game. Prior to that, on Friday, they had easy wins against Philippines, China and Malaysia where the finals scores read as 24-0, 43-7 and 26-5 respectively. After six games, inclusive of the final, Sri Lanka had scored 154 points and conceded 31 in four outings while failing to score a single point against Hong Kong, who were fully fired up in the final.
Sri Lanka were totally outdone by the hosts in the Cup final, which had expectations of a different calibre. Second in line of the best points scorers, Paul Altier, scored a hat-trick of tries as Hong Kong opened scoring through Max Denmark in the second minute with an unconverted try. Altier was the main cog for Hong Kong, as he added 14 points through two converted tries as he scored and put over at both occasions before Cameron Smith added another converted try to give Hong Kong a lead of 26-0 at halftime.
Sri Lanka was brought down to six men, with the sin-binning of Dinuk Amarasinghe, who was taken off the field for two minutes at halftime. Against six men, Hong Kong looked to maintain the pressure on their opponents, who were able to make three breakthroughs during the whole game, but failed all three times. Hong Kong meanwhile added 10 more pointed through two unconverted tries off Altier and Oliver Duffy, just before the game was concluded.
Last year Sri Lanka won the Asian Under-20 7s Series title claiming 26 points in total after winning the first leg held in Johar, Malaysia and finishing second to Hong Kong in Kowloon. South Korea were placed overall second with 22 points while Hong Kong finished one point behind at third. With just one leg of the Series this year, Hong Kong wins the title while pushing down Sri Lanka to overall second place.
Chinese Taipei finished overall third beating Korea 19-12 in the playoff. Singapore won the Plate championship beating Malaysia by 21-5 while with a similar scoreline while China defeated Thailand to claim the seventh slot. Philippines secured the overall ninth spot beating Uzbekistan 14-12 in the playoff.