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Paul McNamara

It was watching Fiji shock South Africa in a 2021 Women’s World Cup pool match that steeled the 18-year-old Alfreda Fisher’s determination to play international rugby.
Or more accurately, it was hearing her father telling his sons at full time that one day he would watch them on the global stage that really got Fisher ticking.
“Yeah, that’s when I thought I’m going to play for Fiji,” Fisher said, at Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground after her team’s rousing 38-32 WXV Global Series Challenger victory over Spain on Sunday.
“I thought, ‘women are strong and we can play rugby, too’. I knew then that he’d be watching me.”
The six-team tournament has been introduced this year, alongside an elite WXV Global Series, as World Rugby seeks to “accelerate the growth of the women’s game”.

And its masterminds could not have asked for a more compelling start. Hong Kong followed the Fiji drama with a grandstand finish of their own, being awarded a penalty try in the last play of the game to beat Brazil 29-24. It was the first time they had led.
“There were 23 sisters right there, showing that if we work together, we can do a lot of cool things,” Lara Schats, the co-captain and player-of-the-match, said.
It was decided to stage the competition over three weeks in a central location to minimise individual unions’ expenses, with the global governing body footing a large slice of operating costs. The next edition in 2028 will provide one ticket to the following year’s World Cup.
With Fisher as captain, Fiji competed in a second straight World Cup last year and beat Wales, the team they have just dislodged from 12th spot in the global rankings.
Fiji coach Mike Legge said the 22-year-old had been named skipper in England because of her “follow-me mentality”.
Raised in the small village of Togo, where girls playing rugby was frowned upon and she had to sneak off for games of touch rugby next to the sea with the boys, Fisher is back in the ranks in Hong Kong for a trio of “massive” matches.
“Most of these teams don’t have many opportunities to play tournaments like this one and it’s vital that we get game time,” Legge said. “It’s a big part of the journey we’re on to try to qualify for the World Cup.
“It’s the same for Spain; we need these opportunities to develop in high-pressure situations, so we can push the bigger nations when we face them.”
The smattering of fans inside the ground in time for Fiji’s fightback against a team ranked two places below them were treated to a battle of contrasting styles. The athletic and expansive Fijians hit the front with three minutes remaining when 20-year-old Adi Salote Nailolo skipped past a weak tackle and ran clear to score.
With Spain tiring against physical opponents, and losing their “discipline and decision-making capacity”, Repeka Adi Tove went over for Fiji’s sixth try.
Casting aside his disappointment, head coach Regis Sonnes said it was essential for his side to play against the likes of Fiji, Samoa and Brazil “so we can push our limits and see where we are”.
A larger and noisier audience saw Tanya Dhar and Lee Ka-shun both score a pair of tries to keep Hong Kong in touch with Brazil, before the penalty-try drama allowed the hosts to recover from 24-22 down at the last.

“Seeing such a big crowd was incredible, and we don’t take it for granted,” Schats, whose team next face Fiji on Saturday, said. “We’re making sure we go 100 per cent and leave [Hong Kong rugby] in a better place for when these young ones [watching] come and take it off our hands.
“We want to create a better path for them, so by the time they get here, we have a full-time set-up, and we can become one of the better teams in the world.”
In the last game of a triple-header, the Netherlands put Samoa to the sword in a 70-0 thrashing.
Frenchman Sonnes had coached male teams in France and Ireland, including Toulouse, Union Bordeaux Begles and Brandon RFC, and the Spanish men’s national side, before he accepted his current post in November last year.
“It’s a new experience, and exciting for me to look for solutions and to grow as a person,” he said. “Coaching women, it’s more social; you have to create a great atmosphere. I love their passion, they send me a lot of positive energy.”
Five of the six challenger teams are coached by men – illustrative, perhaps, of the relative youth of the women’s game. Patricia Garcia Rodriguez, the Spain women’s sevens head coach, is Sonnes’ deputy.
“My second job is to prepare her to be next,” Sonnes said. “I am trying to give her some information, and she’s here for it.”
While Legge led a Fijiana Drua team to the grand final of this season’s Super Rugby Women, where they lost to New South Wales Waratahs, Sonnes said that the Spanish players were competing in a league that “is not the best championship in Europe”.
“They don’t play many high-level games, so when they’re under pressure physically, sometimes their collective decision-making is wrong.
“That’s why we wanted games like these: to travel together and to touch the best. It will show the girls how to train, and what they need physically and technically.”

Pleased with Fiji’s “mental resilience and ability to pull through”, Legge said that successive World Cup qualifications had begun to change perceptions of women’s rugby in the country.
“We still have certain pockets who think the women don’t belong, but that’s rapidly changing,” Legge said. “Four or five years ago, the Fijian rugby public thought it was a joke, pretty much. There’s been a massive turn, and the country is behind us.”
Still, Legge acknowledged that it would take “a bit of work” for women’s rugby to obtain parity with its male counterpart.
For Fisher, who combines playing for the world’s 12th best team with working as an ordinary seawoman in the Republic of Fiji Navy, the ultimate goal is for women’s teams to be “talked about like the Springboks and the All Blacks”.


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Hong Kong (in blue) celebrate a try against Brazil in their WXV Global Series Challenger match at Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground on Sunday. Photo: Karma Lo

Fiji’s Alfreda Fisher (left) takes on the Spanish defence at Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground. Photo: Karma Lo

Hong Kong’s Abigail Chan (right) receives a pass against Brazil. Photo: Karma Lo

Fiji and Spain competing in a line-out in their match at Kai Tak on Sunday. Photo: Karma Lo

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Sohgo Ichikawa is ready to play a leading role in Hong Kong’s Asian Games football campaign. Photo: Sun Yeung

Sohgo Ichikawa training with the Hong Kong under-23 team ahead of the Asian Games. Photo: Sun Yeung

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Hong Kong’s Chloe Leung, here training for the National Games, claimed Asian Road Cycling Championships time trial silver earlier this year in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Eugene Lee

Herve Dagorne with Chloe Leung following her silver medal ride at the Asian Road Cycling Championships. Photo: CAHK

Vincent Lau competes during the men’s individual time trial at the National Games. Photo: Xinhua

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Hong Kong Rugby Union

International Rugby

City team beat Brazil at the death while Fiji score comeback win over Spain as the WXV Global Series Challenger gets under way at Kai Tak


City team beat Brazil at the death while Fiji score comeback win over Spain as the WXV Global Series Challenger gets under way at Kai Tak.


Hong Kong International Test Rugby

Women’s Rugby

World Rugby

Fiji stars full of fire, Hong Kong leave it late, as ‘sisters’ put on WXV Global show

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}City team beat Brazil at the death while Fiji score comeback win over Spain as the WXV Global Series Challenger gets under way at Kai Tak

City team beat Brazil at the death while Fiji score comeback win over Spain as the WXV Global Series Challenger gets under way at Kai Tak