Sunday 18th December: Non-contact Festival on the grass pitch but lots of space for training on the astro.  Please register your availability for training and add comments for any requests for activities.

New Year: training will resume on 8th January with Tai Po Festival on 15th January.  This will probably now include U12, so please indicate your availability on the Team Sheet.  I will be away for most of January, so the coaching team, lead by Peter and supported by Macy, will ensure the squad is well looked after.

25th Anniversary Dinner - Friday 16th December Generals Arms: see the Chairman's Blog on the Home page of the FK Website for details.  Be there to celebrate!

Flying Kukris 25th Anniversary Festival at Kings Park - a festival with a difference!  We experienced the first "Contact" festival with bigger pitches and more match time, providing a more focused rugby environment at a slighly less frenetic pace.  The FK U12 team in the RHT played well against some tough opposition but retained their No11 place in the rankings and avoided relegation to the Bowl.  See U12 League Results.

For once, we had a full complement of players, allowing us a couple of reserves.  Great to see the return of Michael and Isaac, Helio's first festival and a few players back from sickness, injury and other distrations.  Alex Modesti lead the try table with some wonderful runs STRAIGHT through the opposition.  Neal bagged a brace (that's two) from some good darting attacks.  And Aaron steamed over for an excellent try.  It was a day for DEFENCE and great tackles went in from Alex, Aaron, Clovis, Kieran, Mervyn, Michael and Vine amongst others.  We saw some strong runs from Hector and Chris - although he was captured on camera running sideways at one point!  The scrum drive was great from a much more stable platform. 

A strong team performance and something to build on in the New Year.  Well done everybody and thank you to the coaches and parents for all your support, especially Macy who has been working extremely hard to organise our players and parents for our festival.

The U11/12G team did exceptionally well, winning the Plate and earning promotion to the Cup for the next festival.  Congratulations!  See any details on the U11/12G page.

Trials for the U12 Peninsula Team for NYD match concluded with Alex and Neal getting spots on the final squad of 22.  Congratulations to them.  Mervyn,  Clovis and Ling Hon are on the Standby Squad and will continue training with the Peninsula squad.  For all of these players, this is an excellent opportunity to continue improving their rugby abilities and make some friends in other clubs. 

Having heard that over 100 HKFC Mini players plus, Valley Fort and Sai Kung Stingrays are going to KL, I am thinking that Bangkok looks a better option.  The floods have receded and the country probably needs support from their neighbours to recover.   Good thing we didn't go to Singapore because the tournament was cancelled due to flooding!

Mark 15th December, 2011

P.S. You are encouraged to share any fresh photos you have from training or festivals this year.

TPD Festival at Happy Valley on 15/1/12

What a start to the day! The boys overwhelmed FC3 6-0 with a stunning team display of tenacity. We had a tougher fight against a combined MKY/TWR drawing 1-1 in  a tough encounter of fine attacking and defending rugby. Against Valley Fort 2-the eventual winners of the Plate- we held our own until a late winner clinched it for them 2-1. Confidently striding into the next match, we faced DE1 who had more structure and used their strong back line to run in too many (6). Our last match against DBP2 saw us in the lead until the last second of play, ending in a 1-1 draw after an exhilarating match. We played as a good cohesive team with the pack fighting for every ball against much bigger opposition. Alex availed himself of the ball as number 8 and ran in 4 fierce tries. Neal, with superb precision kicking got us out of trouble on many occasions and our backs, notably Clovis with his exemplary all round tackling and running skills put in 2 superb tries with one dive into the corner. Vine on the wing closed down the attack many times and Kieran’s firm hands at kick offs made us all proud of a great day’s rugby. Our scrum is learning that when they put the drills into practice they can be unstoppable!

We are now ranked 9th (out of 20) our highest placing this season.

Next Festival is again at Happy Valley & for the mixed team, play is in the morning of February 12th. We need to submit player names. Please advise early of your availability.

Training as usual ths Sunday 22/1/12 (but we will run a poll to check interest) and Kung Hei Fat Choi to all  Golden Dragons in our year "Year of the Dragon" (and everyone else too of course).

Peter

Update 4/2/12

Training as usual on Sunday 5th February.

12th February Valley Fort Festival is at Happy Valley for us.

The Mixed teams will play during the morning (8am – 1pm) on HV #6 (same pitch as Sunday’s festival) and the Girls during the afternoon (1 – 4:30pm) on HV #12 which is the astro pitch next to HV #6

Please complete the doodle poll to confirm availability (or otherwise).

http://doodle.com/kgzv58b5mnmuetcb

This festival will determine final season placings so it is important we have our best and most committed team.

11th March HK Football Club festival. Please sign up now.

23-25th March HK Sevens- we play 25th March (Sunday). You must have a ticket to be eligible to play.

Please sign up with your availability.

Peter