{"id":263780,"date":"2025-11-05T07:16:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/263780\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T07:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:16:15","slug":"declan-meredith-to-captain-new-look-brumbies-against-hong-kong-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/263780\/","title":{"rendered":"Declan Meredith to captain new-look Brumbies against Hong Kong China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Declan Meredith has been handed the ACT Brumbies<\/a> captaincy for the first time, set to lead the Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> powerhouse when they play Hong Kong China<\/a> at Hong Kong Football Club on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

Meredith enjoyed a career-best Super Rugby Pacific campaign with the Brumbies in 2025, starting four matches at fly-half and making another eight appearances off the pine. In the inaugural Super Rugby AUS season, Meredith started in all three of the Brumbies\u2019 matches.<\/p>\n

Coach Stephen Larkham<\/a> has given Meredith the figurative captain\u2019s armband for a pre-season match against 2027 Men\u2019s Rugby World Cup-bound Hong Kong China, with an inexperienced side without Wallabies and Australia<\/a> A representatives named.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong China qualified for the showpiece event with a 70-22 win over Kora in the final round of the 2025 Asia Rugby Championship. Hong Kong played the Brumby Runners in May, acting as a double header to the round 12 clash with the NSW Waratahs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good opportunity for us. We generally don\u2019t get enough games together at this time of year where they can test themselves at a higher level and bring a fair bit of connection into the team,\u201d Larkham said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of rugby is you can play it anywhere in the world and a lot of these guys have not been to Hong Kong. So we\u2019ll give them an opportunity where they can\u00a0get out and have a bit of a look around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will have opportunities to go and\u00a0experience a different culture and part of the world, and then we get back\u00a0into a bit of Groundhog Day through the pre-season from next week onwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeclan\u00a0is one of our game controllers who regularly talks during the game.\u00a0He\u2019ll be one of the most active participants in huddles, steering the around the field.\u00a0And he\u2019s been in the program as long as anyone else in this squad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meredith will partner Klayton Thron in the halves, while First Nations & Pasifika XV representative Jarrah McLeod<\/a> partners Kadin Pritchard<\/a> in the midfield. Hudson Creighton<\/a> starts on the left wing, with Australia U20<\/a> star Shane Wilcox<\/a> on the right and Austin Anderson<\/a> at fullback.<\/p>\n

Finn Baxter and Drew Brndusic will make their Brumbies debuts as the starting props, packing down with Chris Mickelson<\/a> in the front row. Harvey Cordukes<\/a> and Lachlan Shaw<\/a> round out the tight five as the second-row duo.<\/p>\n

Former Australia U20 skipper Toby Macpherson<\/a> has been selected at blindside flanker, combining with openside flanker Jack Harley<\/a> and No. 8 Tuaina Taii Tualima<\/a> in a promising backrower trio.<\/p>\n

This match will be streamed on RugbyPass TV at 7:30 pm AEDT on Saturday.\u00a0You can sign up for RugbyPass TV HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ACT Brumbies team to take on Hong Kong China<\/p>\n

Finn BaxterChris MickelsonDrew BrndusicHarvey CordukesLachlan ShawToby MacphersonJack HarleyTuaina Taii TualimaKlayton Thorn\u00a0Declan Meredith \u00a9\u00a0Hudson Creighton\u00a0Jarrah McLeod\u00a0Kadin Pritchard\u00a0Shane Wilcox\u00a0Austin Anderson<\/p>\n

Replacements:\u00a0<\/p>\n

16.\u00a0Lipina Ata<\/p>\n

17.\u00a0Nate Hepi<\/p>\n

18.\u00a0Tauati Chan-Tung<\/p>\n

19.\u00a0Ollie Aylmer<\/p>\n

20.\u00a0Cadeyrn Neville<\/p>\n

21.\u00a0Judah Saumaisue<\/p>\n

22.\u00a0Dan Nelson<\/p>\n

23.\u00a0Joe Dillon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Declan Meredith has been handed the ACT Brumbies captaincy for the first time, set to lead the Super…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-263780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263780","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=263780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}