Teamname: | South China Tigers |
Union: | Hong Kong Rugby Union |
Location: | Hong Kong |
Ground: | Hong Kong Stadium Siu Sai Wan Aberdeen Stadium |
Coach: | Craig Hammond Andrew Hall |
Captain: | Liam Slatem |
League: | Global Rapid Rugby |
Url: | southchinatigers.com |
The South China Tigers is a professional rugby union team from Hong Kong that plays in the Global Rapid Rugby competition.
The team was launched in 2018 to participate in the inaugural Global Rapid Rugby season.[1]
For the naming of the team, South China tigers are considered as the most distinctive of all tiger subspecies. The population once numbered more than 4,000 in the wild, distributed from Hunan, Jiangxi in the north to as far south as Hong Kong.[2]
The inaugural Global Rapid Rugby season was played as a showcase series in 2019, with the South China Tigers playing four matches in the Asia Showcase. In the first Rapid Rugby match, Glyn Hughes scored the Tigers' first try in the ninth minute against the Western Force in Perth on 29 March 2019.[3] The team secured their first Rapid Rugby victory a month later in a home match against the Asia Pacific Dragons, winning 29–19 at the Aberdeen Sports Ground.[4]
The squad for the 2020 season includes: