7th Oct Societe Generale Valley RFC Mens Premiership Program

SOCIETE GENERALE VALLEY RFC

RACING SEASON HAS BEGUN

We are finally here - the start of our 42nd RugbySeasonatValleyRFC!

Our Mens Premiership team have spent the past 8 weeks sweating and grueling in preparationfortheseasonahead

Led from the front by Sion Bennett, the team have retained a large amount of players from last season, including Valley stalwarts Luke Dewar, Andrew Farley, Nyasha Tarusenga and SheldonCoffin

Recruitment over the summer has seen a couple of familiar faces return to Hong Kong in the likes of Justin Beese, Toby Jurecka and NicholasBrown.

Alistair Stacey, a player to watch this season has joined us from the Exeter Chiefs Academy and Cornish Pirates. The nippy little scrum half will add that dose of pace which will certainly sharpentheweaponofourforwardpack.

Unfortunately, our star quarterback, Laurence May suffered a season ending injury just last week - we wish him the very best in his recovery and know he will be back commandingthetroopsinnotime.

With this, we have been joined by a true Valley legend - check out this weekends team sheet forasurprise!

THE TEAM

GUS LEGER

newcoachontheblock

Augustine Leger, a highly regarded and accomplished coach, is this years Men's Premiership Head Coach. Commonly known as Gus, his most recent coaching appointments have been roles in Super Rugby with Moana Pasifika and Auckland Blues U20’s, New Zealand Secondary Schools and the New Zealand Barbarian Schools program. He has spent over a decade involved with implementing high performance rugby environments that have developed outstanding athletes who have gone on to representtheAllBlacksandotherinternationalnations.

HehasworkedcloselywiththevariousSuperRugbyfranchiseswiththeirtalentidentificationprograms andhasdevelopednumerousplayerswhohavegoneontofulltimeprofessionalrugbyenvironments. Aside from coaching, Gus is a dual code international athlete, having represented the New Zealand SoftballteamandtheTongaRugbyteamattheRugbyWorldCup

Studio Shodwe

I’mexcitedtohavetheopportunitytobepartoftheValleyfamily.Thereisa legacy of success at the club so with that in mind, there are high expectationstocontinuewiththathistory.Thepre-seasonprogrambegan before I arrived and appreciate the work put in by our coaching and management staff The players are keen and we are piecing together our group one session at a time. We have had a huge loss with some key retirements but we must evolve and carry on It will take a strong committed and focussed group to get the success that we are after this season It didn’t quite work out in 2023 and this will be a big motivator for thoseplayersthatwerepartofthatseason.Also,thenewguysarewanting tostakeaclaimonfinalselectionandstartingspotstoo Onetrainingata time,onegameatatime

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

MENS PREMIERSHIP

6TEAMS

ValleyRFC

SandyBayRFC

HongKongFootballClub

KowloonRFC

HongKongScottish

USRCTigers

180POINTSSYSTEM

3ROUNDS

15LeagueMatches

1ChallengeCup

Topteamafter15Matchesdeclared

LeagueWinner

TopFourLeaguefinisherscontestthe

GrandChampionship

Getyourcalculatorsready-anewpointssystemhasbeenimplementedthisyear,where eachplayerinateamisallocatedacertain‘pointsvalue’onvariousfactors.Eachteamis allowedtoplayateamthatisamaximumof180points

20POINTS AplayerthatholdsWorkingHolidayVisathatis23yearsoldandover

20POINTS AHKQPlayerwhohastransferredfromanotherPremiershipClubwithinthesameseason

15POINTS AplayerthatholdsWorkingHolidayVisaandisunder23yearsold

10POINTS AplayerthatholdsaWorkVisaandhaslivedinHKfor0to1year(NQ1)

8POINTS AplayerthatholdsaWorkVisaandhaslivedinHKfor1to2years(NQ2)

8POINTS Afrontrowplayerunder23thatholdsaWorkVisa

8POINTS AHKQplayerthatisover35yearsold

7POINTS AplayerthatholdsWorkVisaandhaslivedinHKfor2to3years(NQ3)

6POINTS AplayerthatholdsWorkVisaandhaslivedinHKfor3to4years(NQ4)

5POINTS AplayerthatholdsWorkVisaandhaslivedinHKfor4to5years(NQ4)

4POINTS AHKQplayerthatisagedbetween25to35yearsold

2POINTS AHKQplayerthatisunder25yearsold

0POINTS AHKQplayerthatisunder23yearsold

Inadditiontothis-eachmatchdayteammustcontainaminimumof8HongKong Qualifiedand2NQ5playersoraminimumof9HongKongQualifiedand1NQ5playeror aminimumof10HongKongQualifiedplayers.

A L I S T A I R S T A C E Y

Scrumhalf POSITION

YEARS AT VALLEY

70days

GAME DAY ROUTINE

Porridge, lots of water and some caffeine Read over the calls etc and chillout

SUPERHERO FOR THE TEAM

Hulk,forthesmash

TEAMS BEST DANCER

Potty!(Barend)

ANY PLAYER FOR THE TEAM

FinnRussell,beprettycooltoplaywith him and he’s plays an attractive style ofrugby.

ROOM WITH WHO ON TOUR

Shelly-forthetunes

2 TRUTHS 1 LIE

I’m 5ft 9, I was 11 on the 11th of the 11th 2011,I’vemetRomanAbramovich

from the archives v HKFC

HERE TO HELP

Societe Generale Valley RFC are excited to announce a new mental health campaign for the upcoming 2023-2024 season #heretohelp is a wellbeing project that aims to bring together the Valley community to talk about mental health and share resources and techniquestosupporteachotherinourmentalhealthjourneys.

SpearheadedbyourPremiershipplayersHenryShiellandKatrinaRoszinskyandsupported by key members of our Club, the campaign has begun with a Q&A workshop, and will follow up with mental health training open to all our members to attend and walk and talksthroughouttheseason-staytunedformoredetails!

For more information or ways to support the campaign, please email heretohelp@valleyrfc.com

Social Welfare Department 2343 2255

24-hour information enquiries Cantonese and English

The Samaritans Suicide Prevention 28960000

Baptist Oi Kwan Social Service 25354135

24-hourinfohotline,SocialWorkeravailableduringtheday Cantonese

Websites

Studio Shodwe

24-hourhotline Cantonese,Mandarin,English,Malay,Hindiand6others

wwwmindorghk/mental-health-a-to-z/ Offersinformationonamultitudeofmentalhealthconditions (English&Chinese)

https://wwwshallwetalkhk/zh/ HongKonggovernmentinitiativetopromotementalhealth andtacklestigma(English&Chinese)

FIX TU RE S NEXT 4

vKowloon

Friday13thOctober

KingsPark19:30

vSandyBay

Saturday21stOctober

HappyValley14:45

vHKScottish

Saturday28thOctober

HappyValley14:45

vTigers

Saturday25thNovember

KingsPark15:00

WITH THANKS

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

Thank you to our Title Sponsor Societe Generale, and our primary sponsors TV5 Monde, Mayer Brown, Bonaqua, Swire Properties, Links Moving, BFT and the Happy Valley Bar and Grill As well as our product sponsors ONLY Beverages and Metabev