Hong Kong will pack in as many as 22 matches before the 2027 Rugby World Cup as they trade in their status as Asian heavyweights to try to hold their own as global minnows.
Opportunity will have to be balanced with damage limitation when the city’s men make their tournament debut, after Wednesday’s draw landed them daunting Pool A tangles with the giants of New Zealand and hosts Australia, but also a potentially winnable encounter with Chile.
And preparation for those differing challenges comes while players and coaches are – as head coach Logan Asplin put it – “still learning the elements of what it means to be a full-time rugby player”.
“Obviously our long-term goal is, how do we drive the highest level of performance against high-performance teams that best prepares us to perform at this level,” Asplin said.
Hong Kong players watch the World Cup draw by live stream on Wednesday. Photo: Dickson Lee
There will be six Test matches to work with next year in the newly launched Nations Cup, including one against Chile, while the growing relationships with the Japanese and Australian unions should result in more games to follow those that took place last month.
Asplin would ideally like his side to play 12 times over the course of the next 12 months, taking advantage of having 35 players in a full-time programme and at least a dozen others overseas or in the city’s sevens set-up.