Premiership Grand Championship Finals - March 18

GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS Premiership

from the Valley they call Happy

we are here

What a journey it has been for both our Mens and Women’s team this season, with the real tester played in the semi finals last weekend.

Men’s pulled off a last minute victory against Sandy Bay, as Laurence May pulled the rabbit out of the hat and kicked a pin point cross kick to Hugo Stiles to gather and dot down.

Whilst in the Women’s game Bella Milo edged over a 40 meter penalty to swing momentum to her side as they closed the game off despite a late surge from Tigers.

We are here. And what an awesome accomplishment to get here. We will continue adding to this great legacy that is Valley rugby.

Your thoughts on the season so far?

This season has been a testament to how determined and dedicated our members are to their sport, Valley RFC, and to their coaches and teammates It has been four long years of half seasons, disruptions, and a global pandemic But through all of that we have emerged ready to compete once again and to grow and share our love of sports with the community We have also been hard at work finalizing the Valley Foundation and we are finally up and running providing sports and education to those in our community who have less of an opportunity to participate You can tell that our members have missed playing as many of our teams in all three sections have made it to semi finals and final matches in their respective leagues/divisions. I speak for all of our members when I say it is great to be back playing sport again!!

How do you feel the club has performed overall?

I think our club has performed admirable this year All three sections have new coaches in various positions, which always presents their own challenges and opportunities for our members Players have shown their physical toughness and mental fortitude with a full season for the first time in years While it is a normal season, the lack of sport in recent years has us all retraining our minds and bodies and we have been fortunate that we all seem to be gaining momentum at the right time as we enter the grand championships Every single team has played hard to the very end Two of three of our community rugby teams made it to their respective grand final and everyone has come down to support one another throughout the season and will continue to do so as our other sections finish up their season later this spring

What are your thoughts on our Premiership teams?

The Mens team has shown great resilience this year Preseason was strong and there was an incredible amount of energy within the Prem and Prem A squads. But that energy didn’t translate on the pitch and they got off to a much slower start than all of us expected, including the players But they didn’t let this deter them and they continued to work hard and grind in practice and we are seeing the culmination of their incredible effort We were sitting in last place in the tables after 4-5 games and finished second We beat a very tough opponent, and a team that always had an answer for us during the season, in the semi finals and won on a very late try. They are primed and ready to face the old enemy and recapture the Grand Championship for Valley!!

Our women’s team is a perfect story of new and old members coming together for the first time and finding out how to play for a new coach and find their winning form once more. They struggles in the mid season against the stronger teams, but once again, down the stretch, they have found their form and are looking like the Valley women’s teams of old They play with more heart and passion than any other team in any league in Hong Kong We can strike at any moment and showed this with a last play try against an incredibly strong and well drilled Tigers squad in the semi finals They are ready to remind the league winners who the best women’s rugby team in Hong Kong is!!

Final Words

I think we have been very fortunate with our amazing coaches, hard working volunteers, and fantastic players We always have high expectations from our teams and players and they have all stepped up and played above and beyond our expectations Griffins have combines with the MaJai and that squad played some terrific games and we got to follow the growth and development of our younger players as they played better and better rugby throughout the season Mavericks have gone from bottom half of the Championship league to playing a close match in a Grand final Reds we’re supposed to be in a rebuilding year and they played hard down the stretch and earned their spot in the Grand final as well Losing such a close match to a team they have drawn with this season Our Prem A squad played a tough semifinal and lost by a try, but played great rugby all season And we the results for Prem Mens and Womens remain to be seen The heart and passion everyone of our players have shown though makes us all proud!!

I wanted to thank all of our members, alumni, supporters, volunteers, and paid positions in supporting us and helping makes us the club we are We’ve not seen the turmoil and difficulties the last four years have given us ever before in the clubs history So thank you everyone for supporting Valley and each other and thank you for making this a second family for so many of our memebers and

Valley RFC Premiership Team

Valley RFC Premiership Team

Our season has been a mix bag with some great learnings along the way and immense team growth. The start of the season, that promised so much, was the worst in the clubs history with a 0-4 record Fast forward to the last four games of the season and its a 4 from 4 record, and with it second place in the league, add a Grand Championship finals spot Truly a mix bag season

Expectations are always high with a club like Valley and all its traditions richly tied in with Grand Championship success in the past The team growth has been immense.

The character and resilience this team has shown to keep on course and not stray into the weeds, when it was dead easy option with injuries & unavailability is a testament to the leadership group who have some seasoned vets mixed in with some outstanding individuals that stood up this season At the forefront of this group is our Captain Sion Bennett, who I cannot speak highly enough as a player and leader, but its underpinned by just being a good good man. Easy to follow good men. We were lucky, our squad was full of them. I am pleased that I had my coaches with me all season led by Sam Hocking He checked and challenged me on a daily basis His connection with our forward leaders grew and with it our understanding of where our true identity lay.

I am very pleased with new players that we acquired this season Across the board from the start of the season to midway and to the end... we kept adding players and the quality grew, and the team embraced them. The new players ( some old Valley vets) have all played a key role in shaping our identity within our team culture which is laced with enjoyment This group of men have taught me so much about enjoyment and enjoying everything about rugby. This cannot be understated.

coach reflection

MARKFATIALOFA

This season has been one where it was difficult for the players initially as we had a new coaching set up, new players and needed to adjust to departing or unavailable players. This led to mixed results as we tried to grow our game

However, as our relationships and understanding has grown so has our game Unbeaten in 2023 the team has established a sense of identity, purpose and focus whilst embodying the sense of fun amd family that is the DNA of any Valley women ’ s team Our leadership group has grown in driving this and deserves significant credit.

During the season we have spent some time looking at the legacy others have left for us, and we hope the resilience and character of the side will add to this in some small way What I do know is that we have a whole crop of new players spread between our Reds and Blacks who have brought into the Valley way and are Valley for life

We are genuinely excited about playing in the final and hope that can translate to a performance that does this side justice

coach reflection KEVINWEST

a selection of our fave

a selection of our fave

We've had our ups and downs throughout the season and we ' ve pulled together as team. I think we should be pretty happy, we are playing some good footy, and we ' ve come up trump with a few results that could have gone either way.

We are in the Grand champ finals, that speaks for itself, its about us now being relaxed and go about our business in the finals. Beating Tigers in the semi in front of their home crowd in what could have gone either way, showed true grit from our squad

We have a few work ons but as a team I can say we have great leadership and drivers who help drive our team to perform We also have the ability and confidence to play wide when its on and play tight and smart when we have too. I am pleased with the trust that we have built on defense. We have talented players across the park both on attack and defence and when we get it right its exciting

BELLAMILO captain's corner

It's been a ' season of two halves' as the cliché goes, we were struggling to really build any sort of continuity in the first half of the season and the results weren't going our way The important part for me was that throughout this there was always an inner belief that we could improve and we could get to where we needed to be.

On the whole i think we ' ve added more and more layers to our performances as the season has gone on We struggled to find an identity at the start of the season but now we feel we ' re in a great place. This was epitomised in our semi final win. Whilst it wasn't the prettiest win or performance the manner in which we won it with a come back in the dying minutes, and to hold on to the ball for those final minutes showed the grit and team spirit we have built.

I struggle to think of a rugby season that I have enjoyed more than this season, simply because of the tight bond we have built within the squad We spoke about resilience a lot in preseason and I think this has been built off the back of being a tight knit group

SIONBENNETT captain's corner

behind the scenes

Set Up & Pack Down Team

Our game day set up and pack down team are a group of wonderful ladies and rugby fans. They have been busy helping set up tents, pitchside banners and posts during their free time when available/

Angel Marie Binahon Tindoc

Mary Grace Crisostomo

Reotutar, Melody T

Eunovalyn M Anggam

Geneveive Dondiego

Rica Therese Tan

Geraldine

Prem Team Physiotherapists

Men’s Physiotherapist:

Matt Cornwall, Joint Dynamics

Women’s Physiotherapist:

Kit Kong Man Wing, KPEX Physio Centre

Photography , Team Graphics and Program

Team Sheets: Claudia Wong, Kay

Program: Samantha Scott

Photography: Patrick Leung & Lamson

Societe Generale Valley RFC would like to acknowledge and express sincere thanks and gratitude to our sponsors and partners

We would not be here if it was not for our Title Sponsor Societe Generale, and our primary sponsors TV5 Monde, Mayer Brown, Bonaqua, Swire Properties, Links Moving, HKEX and the Happy Valley Bar and Grill.

We are also lucky to have the support of ONLY Beverage, Gweilo Beers and Metabev who provide our members with products and discount codes to be used throughout the season.