The Hong Kong Rugby Football Union today announced the training squad from which the final 12-man squad to represent Hong Kong at the Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens 2007 will be selected. The Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens 2007 will take place at the Hong Kong Stadium from Friday 30 March to Sunday 1 April, 2007.
The training squad re-confirms the increasingly homegrown nature of the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union's national representative teams, with 12 of the 17-man squad Asian Games eligible.
HKRFU Head of Performance Ivan Torpey commented on the selection saying, "The standard of player that is now vying for places is without doubt the strongest it has been since my arrival in 2004. The task of reducing the squad to the selected 17 players has been the most challenging of all of the Sevens selections that I've been involved with."
"It's a very young squad which is a testament to the development programme put in place over the past decade at the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union. The form of the players can also be attributed to the work of coach Rodney McIntosh who has been very important to the development of the players. Rodney is a former Hong Kong Sevens player and the players have a lot of respect for him. Fitness trainer Johnny Gbenda-Charles has also made a great contribution to the dynamism of the team since joining the HKRFU," added Torpey.
The 17-man expanded training squad includes six players vying to make their Hong Kong Sevens debut: Colin Bisley, Fan Shun Kei, Anthony Haynes, Nick Hurrell, Keith Robertson and Ashley Wayburne. Balancing out these hopefuls are 11 players with previous Hong Kong Sevens experience: Andrew Chambers, Ricky Cheuk, Nigel D'Acre, Justin Gregory, Kris Marin, Kenzo Pannell, Tsang Hing Hung, Rowan Varty, Jeff Wong, Mark Wright and Andy Yuen. Ten members of the squad selected for the Asian Games 2006 in Doha, Qatar have been included in the training squad.
The squad will undergo an intense training period from now until March 2007, when it will be narrowed down to the final 12-man squad mandated by the International Rugby Board for participating teams at the Hong Kong Sevens.
| The members of this year's Hong Kong Sevens training squad are: |
Surname |
First Name |
Club |
Bisley |
Colin |
HKCC |
Chambers |
Andrew |
HKFC |
Cheuk*# |
Ricky |
HKFC |
D'Acre |
Nigel |
HKFC |
Fan*# |
Shun Kei |
DeA |
Gregory |
Justin |
DeA |
Haynes*# |
Anthony |
HKFC |
Hurrell # |
Nick |
DeA |
Marin |
Kris |
Kowloon |
Pannell*# |
Kenzo |
Canterbury University (NZ) |
Robertson*# |
Keith |
Nottingham University (UK) |
Tsang*# |
Hing Hung |
DeA |
Varty*# |
Rowan |
Nottingham University (UK) |
Wayburne# |
Ashley |
Valley |
Wong*# |
Jeff |
Queens University (UK) |
Wright*# |
Mark |
Loughborough University (UK) |
Yuen*# |
Andy |
Valley |
* Asian Games 2006 squad member
# Asian Games eligible player |
For more information on the Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens 2007 please visit the HKRFU's official Sevens website at http://www.hksevens.com
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Released on behalf of the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union by Octagon Greater China Limited.
For further enquiries, please contact Sean Moore or Andy Yeung on tel: 852 2534 5039 / 5014 respectively; by fax to: 852 2598 0280 or by email: sean.moore@octagon.com or andy.yeung@octagon.com.
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