{"id":156850,"date":"2025-11-28T04:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156850\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T04:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:28:12","slug":"hong-kong-rugby-players-eye-differing-world-cup-road-maps-as-club-season-resumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156850\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong rugby players eye differing World Cup road maps as club season resumes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Domestic rugby will return to Hong Kong next week after an international break of varying fortunes for the city\u2019s men and women, and for both it represents the next step in differing paths to their respective World Cups.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The men have already secured a place at the 2027 edition in Australia, but a 58-12 defeat at the hands of Portugal in their only Test of the autumn almost a fortnight ago was a salutary lesson in how far they still have to go.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hong Kong\u2019s women, meanwhile, began their journey to the 2029 tournament by beating both Germany and Belgium over consecutive weeks, even with a squad shorn of some of their most experienced players by National Games commitments.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In their absence, 18-year-olds Elsie Hulme and Jasmine Fitzhenry, both products of the city\u2019s sevens programme, were just two of a new breed who grabbed their opportunities with both hands.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Fitzhenry, a second-row, was described as \u201ca really exciting prospect\u201d by head coach Tumua Ioane, while Hulme\u2019s teammates were taken by her \u201cunbelievable work-rate\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Elsie Hulme (left) impressed her Hong Kong teammates with her work-rate. Photo: HKCR\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/22001ccd-d6f0-4627-8494-0a36ecf51761_127208a8.jpg\" title=\"Elsie Hulme (left) impressed her Hong Kong teammates with her work-rate. Photo: HKCR\"\/>Elsie Hulme (left) impressed her Hong Kong teammates with her work-rate. Photo: HKCR<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Ioane said he was \u201cincredibly proud\u201d of the team, who beat Germany 12-10 and then came from a try down at half-time to beat Belgium 15-7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Domestic rugby will return to Hong Kong next week after an international break of varying fortunes for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[86429,972,94808,15311,94811,170,2938,3448,94806,85,46,94810,94815,94812,54488,17673,94809,1363,105,94813,36453,94807,94814],"class_list":{"0":"post-156850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-asian-games","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australia-2027","11":"tag-belgium","12":"tag-elsie-hulme","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-hangzhou","15":"tag-hong-kong","16":"tag-hong-kong-rugby","17":"tag-il","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-jasmine-fitzhenry","20":"tag-jasmine-fung-hoi-ching","21":"tag-montana-heslop","22":"tag-national-games","23":"tag-portugal","24":"tag-rugby-premiership","25":"tag-rugby-world-cup","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-tumua-ioane","28":"tag-womens-world-cup","29":"tag-world-cup-2027","30":"tag-wxv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}