Asia Rugby Championship: Douglas frustrated by Hong Kong’s winning start to World Cup bid
Hong Kong beat UAE in Dubai, but six-try performance leaves plenty of room for improvement, head coach says
Frustration is not the overriding emotion you would normally expect on the back of a convincing 43-10 win, but then Hong Kong men’s head coach Andrew Douglas has exacting standards.
The Kiwi watched his side ultimately cruise past the United Arab Emirates in their opening Asia Rugby Championship fixture at the Sevens Stadium in Dubai on Saturday, but was not exactly thrilled with how they put together a six-try performance.
He had a point. A sloppy opening 10 minutes, which might generously have been attributed to being wound too tight, gave way to a display that was punctuated by poor handling, questionable decision-making and rushed passing.
Douglas knows those traits will not cut it at the 2027 World Cup in Australia, to which the winners of this tournament will earn direct entry.
Mathew Worley’s 47th-minute try, his side’s third, included all those elements that so riled the coach, and was only possible because of some ridiculous juggling by Ben Axten-Burrett, who in his haste to collect a wild pass from Nathan De Thierry needed his head and an outstretched leg to prevent a knock-on.
The centre’s contortions confounded the UAE defence to the extent that all Worley had to do, once his teammate had sufficient control of the ball to pass it, was skip between a befuddled group of forwards and go in under the posts from 22 metres out.