The Hong Kong Sevens is a rugby sevens tournament held annually in Hong Kong on a weekend in late March or early April. Considered the premier tournament on the World Rugby Sevens Series competition, the Hong Kong Sevens is currently the seventh tournament on the World Series calendar. The tournament spans three days, beginning on a Friday and concluding on Sunday. The tournament is organised each year by the Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The latest Hong Kong Rugby Sevens is being held on Friday 5 April, Saturday 6 April, Sunday 7 April 2024.
The Western Force is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia, currently competing in Super Rugby Pacific. They previously played in Super Rugby from 2006 until they were axed from the competition in 2017. Following their axing they played in the National Rugby Championship in 2018 and 2019, replacing the Perth Spirit, and Global Rapid Rugby from 2018 to 2020, an Indo-Pacific competition organised by Andrew Forrest.
Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) is the governing body for rugby union in Hong Kong. It was founded in 1952 and became affiliated to World Rugby in 1988. It organises and oversees local rugby, including the annual Hong Kong Sevens tournament and the HKRU Premierships.
The Hong Kong national rugby union team, nicknamed the Dragons, has made the qualifying rounds of the Rugby World Cup. Rugby union in Hong Kong is administered by the Hong Kong Rugby Union since 1952, and successfully competes annually in the Asia Rugby Championship.
Australian rules football in China has been played since the 1989 and grew in popularity in the 2010s.
Rugby union in China is a growing sport; however, it is still not overly popular. China became affiliated to the International Rugby Board in 1997 and as of 1 July 2019, its women's XV side was ranked 24th and its men's XV side 80th in the world. Neither the women's team nor the men's team has yet qualified for a Women's Rugby World Cup or a men's Rugby World Cup. However, China has hopes of one day hosting the men's event, and World Rugby has indicated it supports taking the event there.
Aberdeen Sports Ground is a rugby union and football sports ground situated at 108 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Aberdeen, Hong Kong. It is the home stadium of Hong Kong Premier League football club Southern and Global Rapid Rugby rugby union team South China Tigers.
Brett Wilkinson is a South African born rugby union coach and former player. He is currently scrum coach at Ealing Trailfinders. Previously, he was Head Coach for HKU Sandy Bay in the Hong Kong Premiership and scrum coach for the Hong Kong national team and Global Rapid Rugby side the South China Tigers. He coached at Brunel University for 1 year between 2021-2022 before being promoted to Ealing Trailfinders Scrum coach.
Tom Bristow is a retired English rugby union loosehead prop. He represented Hong Kong Rugby Union at international level in November 2019. He made his test debut against Belgium national rugby union team and Spain national rugby union team in the Europe test matches.
The Asia Pacific Dragons, also known as APDs, is a rugby union team based in Singapore that played in the Global Rapid Rugby Showcase Series of 2019.
Global Rapid Rugby was an international rugby union competition that launched a showcase series for six professional teams in 2019, played in locations across the Asia-Pacific region. Rapid Rugby matches are slightly shorter than the traditional 80 minutes and have other variations from standard rugby laws that are intended to increase the speed of the game.
The Fijian Latui is a professional rugby union team based in Suva that plays in the Global Rapid Rugby competition.
The 2019 Global Rapid Rugby season was a showcase series for seven rugby union teams played in locations across the Asia-Pacific region. Global Rapid Rugby originally planned a full home and away tournament followed by finals, with eight teams competing in 2019. The competition launch was postponed by a year, however, due to the short time frame following World Rugby approval in November 2018. A scaled-down showcase series of fourteen matches was arranged instead.
Manuma Samoa is a professional rugby union team based in Samoa that plays in the Global Rapid Rugby competition. Founded in 2019 as Kagifa Samoa, the team is backed by the Samoa Rugby Union.
The Pacific Championship Series (PCS) is a professional esports league for League of Legends teams competing in the Asia-Pacific. Riot Games, the game's developer, created the league on 19 December 2019. This followed an announcement three months prior by Garena – the game's distributor in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia – that it planned to merge the League of Legends Master Series (LMS) and League of Legends SEA Tour (LST) into a single tournament jointly run with Riot Games.
The 2020 season of Global Rapid Rugby ended after only one round of competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was not continued. The season was launched in February 2020 as the first full home and away Rapid Rugby tournament, following the shorter showcase series held the previous year.
The China Lions is a professional rugby union team that was formed in 2020 to compete in the Global Rapid Rugby competition across the Asia-Pacific region. It is a joint venture between the China Rugby Football Association and New Zealand's Bay of Plenty Rugby Union.
Jasmine Cheung Shuk-han is a former Hong Kong rugby union player. She competed for Hong Kong when they made their first Rugby World Cup appearance at the 2017 tournament.
Tammy Lau Nga-wun is a Hong Kong rugby union player. She competed for Hong Kong when they debuted at the 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup in Dublin.
Jack Neville is an English born rugby union player who plays for Nottingham Rugby in the RFU Championship. He plays internationally for Hong Kong.
