After performing well against Russia in the Bowl quarter final, Hong Kong left themselves a large hole to dig out of in the first half of the match against France, going behind 19-nil at half time.

"A couple of individual errors crept back in, coupled with a bit of bad luck in terms of the refereeing decisions, which contributed to France's first-half lead. But I was impressed with the way the guys fought back in the second half and full credit again to Tsang Hing Hung and Fan Shun Kei who made a real impact in the second half. These guys have had to wait for a couple of weeks to get their chance at the IRB level and they have taken them well."

Hong Kong outscored the French in the second half by three tries to one in the second half but the gap was too wide to close. In the second half, Hong Kong opened the scoring through a try to flying winger Yiu Kam Shing in the opening minute to bring the score to 19-5.

The French replied quickly to further widen the gap to 26-5 before Hong Kong's fight back began with a well-worked interplay move between captain Rowan Varty and playmaker Keith Robertson put Robertson over to bring the scores to 26-10.

Yiu Kam Shing then added his second try of the match in the sixth minute to edge Hong Kong closer at 26-15 but the French neatly retained possession for the last minute of the game to close out the match at 26-15.

Hong Kong Coach Dai Rees commented on the last two weeks of elite sevens saying, "The team is disappointed in losing to France but I can't fault the effort given over the build-up period to the Hong Kong Sevens and the way we have played this weekend in Tokyo. I think Keith Robertson was outstanding today and his performance indicates what a difference he would have made had he been available to play yesterday. It could have tipped some of those near-wins into the victory column, which would have put us in contention for the Plate.

"Playing in back-to-back events has been a great test for us as a team and I was very pleased with the way the guys got up for the Tokyo Sevens. It is easy to get energized in Hong Kong with all of the crowds and the razzmatazz, but I can't fault the attitude from this weekend and for the most part I was impressed with our approach this week in Tokyo.

"I think this weekend shows that we can compete with the core teams and it makes last weekend's result in Hong Kong hurt that much more frankly, but we will re-focus now on the 15s and the HSBC Asian Five Nations which starts in just three weeks so we still have a lot to accomplish.

Earlier in the day, Hong Kong came from behind to beat Russia 17-12 in the Bowl Quarter final.

France v Hong Kong (Bowl Semi Final) Scoring:

France	Hong Kong
Julien Jane, 2T	Yiu Kam-Shing, 2T
Manoel Dall Igna, 1T	Keith Robertson, 1T
Paul Albaladejo, 1T, 3C	--
Halftime: 19	Halftime: 0
Fulltime: 26	Fulltime: 15

Hong Kong v Russia (Bowl Quarter Final) Scoring:

Hong Kong	Russia
Tom McQueen, 2T	Denis Simplikevich, 1T
Alex McQueen, 1T	Vladimir Ostroushko, 1T
Keith Robertson, 1C	Alexander Yanyuskin, 1C
Halftime: 0	Halftime: 5
Fulltime: 17	Fulltime: 12