{"id":204504,"date":"2025-10-11T03:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T03:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204504\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T03:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T03:17:11","slug":"rugby-world-cup-2027-japan-tour-gauges-hong-kongs-progress-on-road-to-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204504\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby World Cup 2027: Japan tour gauges Hong Kong\u2019s progress on road to Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hong Kong\u2019s men travelled to Japan on Friday, ready to put nine weeks of pre-season training to the test in two \u201creally important games\u201d against professional opposition.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Matches against Mazda Hiroshima Skyactivs and LeRIRO Fukuoka will give head coach Logan Asplin and director of rugby Andrew Douglas the chance to see how far the squad have come since qualifying for the 2027 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Most of the 35 players Hong Kong China Rugby has signed to contracts will make the trip, with 25 players named for the first game on Saturday, and changes then expected the following weekend.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cOur first games after qualifying are really important for us, to know that we are making progress every single day and every single match, so Saturday\u2019s game is quite important in that context,\u201d Douglas said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Captain Josh Hrstich is carrying a slight knock, and the plan is for the 34-year-old to be carefully managed through the 11-day camp in Fukuoka.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Hong Kong squad prepare for their stint in Japan. Photo: Jonathan Wong\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/be5d3c80-31d1-4090-bead-fe94ab3f4dd7_a291ac12.jpg\" title=\"The Hong Kong squad prepare for their stint in Japan. Photo: Jonathan Wong\"\/>The Hong Kong squad prepare for their stint in Japan. Photo: Jonathan Wong<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In his absence, Football Club teammate Pierce MacKinlay-West will lead the side in the first game against Skyactivs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s men travelled to Japan on Friday, ready to put nine weeks of pre-season training to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[58864,127126,64,63,81,1119,63022,10340,108862,941,127127,108871,29477,127124,108877,127123,127125,760,85],"class_list":["post-204504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-act-brumbies","tag-andrew-douglas","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian","tag-football-club","tag-fukuoka","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-china-rugby","tag-japan","tag-japan-a","tag-josh-hrstich","tag-kai-tak-stadium","tag-leriro-fukuoka","tag-logan-asplin","tag-mazda-hiroshima-skyactivs","tag-pierce-mackinlay-west","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}