Hong Kong burst into full rugby blossom on Saturday, with the blistering opening of the inaugural Vets 40+ League at King’s Park. It is the first senior (pun intended) rugby played since February …. 8 long months ago.

The Valley Knackered Nags looked resplendent in red, somehow managing a bench of four once Clarkie trundled up strategically late. Any team that can feature two players that are named Ashton David and David Ashton should get a 7 point start but sadly the ref had little appreciation of the irony and nor of anagrams.

Captain Colin “Olse” Olsen whipped the rabble into a starting XV and a couple of line-out calls and backs moves later, we were ready to blaze into the unknown rugby void.

No less than seven former premiership players got the nod in Olse’s XV for the ages – himself, Jon “Clarkie” Clarke, Alex “Bad As” Baddeley, Justin “Juddy” Temara, Jon “Harty” Hart, And Dailly and club COO, Grant “Boozer” Beuzeval. Admittedly, Olse, Clarkie and Boozer last played prems in the 20th century, while Andy and Harty in the early 21sty Century and the Sai Kung Dynamic Duo of Badders and Juddy, have featured in many famous Valley Grand Victories on this pitch.

With current men’s Premiership squad manager, Doug Fluker, looking on – scouting for talent – the match against HKFC kicked off in beautiful Autumn weather while squeals of excitement escaped from several players' shorts.

Club’s strategy became immediately evident, as their very, very big humans pounded away with ball in hand. Eventually, a giant of a man trundled over for FC after several phases to get the scoreboard moving.

An opportunistic second try to Club ensued from a Valley midfield blunder and it was suddenly 0-12.

And that’s when the Alex Baddeley one-man-crimewave commenced. Having recently shredded 30 hard-earned kilograms, this was vintage Badders. Hong Kong’s chiropractors will be busy on Monday morning, shaking their heads and tutting at their patients’ foolishness for playing rugby at their ages and at the same time learning of the Valley No 8’s enthusiastic handywork with ball in hand and shoulder in face. If there was a track and field event for sprinting backwards, several of the Football Club players might consider entering a relay team. In fact, so much exertion was going into each of Alex's runs, that he had to excuse himself from the pitch for an urgent bowel evacuation - returning moments later, even lighter.

Together with his old Roto-Vegas mate Juddy, the two former internationals kept Valley in the game and kept plenty of opponents spitting rubber pellets from their parched mouths.

With Darryl serving Juddy up with quality pill, Valley worked their way back into the game with Big Dyl taking a short ball from Juddy, swiping past two flailing defenders and dotting near the posts. Moments later, Juddy himself put the dance shoes on and skipped past a couple of props for try number two.

The third Valley try was a piece of art. A back-pedalling scrum on their 10 metre line was somehow salvaged by Andy Dailly off the back, sniping down the blind, linking with Davo in support, who fed a final pass to the Wease, who was screaming down the touchline for a gorgeous 7 pointer that had the Men In Horse leading 19-12.

After Badders nearly decapitated an opponent, HKFC and the ref conspired to ignore a few knock ons as they bumbled the ball across the line for a dubious try that brought them within two points.

Alas Valley just couldn’t find the chalk in the second stanza and in the final moments, FC raided again and dropped into the corner for a well-worked try that indicated that these bastards had probably been training – completely against the rules of Vets rugby and considered by the rugby community in attendance as a colossal act of cowardice. The conversion was gutlessly nailed from the sideline and soon after, the whistle finally blew for a hollow 24-19 victory to Club.

A very heavy debriefing session saw the two teams deleting cans of Közel at a pace that was nowhere to be seen on the pitch.

All in all, it was a privilege and a pleasure to back on the pitch and having a run about with old mates under a big blue sky.

The Vets League continues with monthly Friday evening matches from November until February.

* Disclaimer - Valley RFC distances itself from some of the comments in this article and would probably argue that the authors views do not necessarily represent the club etc.