{"id":358045,"date":"2025-12-19T09:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/358045\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T09:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:53:09","slug":"hong-kong-men-begin-quest-to-join-7s-elite-against-samoa-tonga-colombia-at-hsbc-svns-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/358045\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong men begin quest to join 7s elite against Samoa, Tonga, Colombia at HSBC SVNS 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hong Kong\u2019s men will begin their bid to join the rugby sevens elite with pool games against Samoa, Tonga and Colombia at the HSBC SVNS 3 in Dubai next month.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The National Games gold medallists must win two of those encounters to make the semi-finals in an eight-team tournament that has Belgium, Canada, Italy and Madagascar in Pool B.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Only the finalists will progress to the next stage, HSBC SVNS 2, which will be held in Kenya, Uruguay and Brazil over three weekends in February and March.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Over those weekends, those two teams will take on Kenya, the United States, Germany and Uruguay, with the top four earning the right to compete in the new 12-team HSBC SVNS World Championship Round, which starts with the Cathay\/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens in April.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">After the disappointment of the Challenger Series in February, when both the men and the women struggled against teams they expected to beat, head coach Jevon Groves said he was \u201creally looking for performances that are a reflection of our preparation leading into the competition\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWe didn\u2019t show ourselves well in the Challenger Series last [season], and there are a couple of things that we want to put right in terms of being competitive in that regional qualifier tier, and we want a chance to play in more tournaments,\u201d Groves added. \u201cWe know that doing well in the division three competition can unlock a couple more tournaments of that high quality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Hong Kong\u2019s first game on January 17 will be against familiar rivals Tonga (left). Photo: World Rugby\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/58014ee7-64fb-4481-b437-d2fb91129520_98c54a39.jpg\" title=\"Hong Kong\u2019s first game on January 17 will be against familiar rivals Tonga (left). Photo: World Rugby\"\/>Hong Kong\u2019s first game on January 17 will be against familiar rivals Tonga (left). Photo: World Rugby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s men will begin their bid to join the rugby sevens elite with pool games against Samoa,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[1724,64,63,2071,11308,2065,36452,39842,30330,32976,5951,5717,10340,195830,2328,195829,34534,143767,36448,145827,195831,760,5993,85,18559,1055,39085],"class_list":["post-358045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-belgium","tag-brazil","tag-canada","tag-cathay-hsbc-hong-kong-sevens","tag-challenger-series","tag-chile","tag-colombia","tag-dubai","tag-germany","tag-hong-kong","tag-hsbc-svns","tag-italy","tag-jevon-groves","tag-kenya","tag-madagascar","tag-national-games","tag-nations-cup","tag-pacific-islanders","tag-rugby","tag-samoa","tag-sports","tag-tonga","tag-united-states","tag-uruguay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358045","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=358045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}