Round two of the KPMG Women’s Premiership sees another full slate of matches involving a record eight Premiership sides competing this year, with the Game of the Week fixture an expected tight clash between Natixis Hong Kong Football Club Ice and SCAA First Pacific Causeway Bay Phoenix at Hong Kong Football Club (16.30).

Phoenix opened their season with a convincing win over City Sparkle (60-3) while Ice were on the wrong end of their encounter with Eco Gai Wu, a 32-5 loss.

HKFC coach Royce Chan’s squad will have a better chance heading into the traditionally tight-run affair with Phoenix and with that experience against Gai Wu under their belts.

“We had a go against Gai Wu, which I was pleased about. We did well when we stuck to our game plan, which we did for parts of the first half, while we were still fresh. But in the second half we made too many silly mistakes. Rugby is about possession – without it you can’t do anything.”

Chan is targeting a top-four finish by Christmas when the Premiership will divide into elite and development Premiership competitions.

“Our squad is the biggest and strongest I’ve seen in three years. We have several new players, who performed well last week. This gives me some tough choices to make and makes selection more competitive. Early on, I will be playing a lot of the newer players to see how they perform at this level.

Some of the new faces at Sports Road enjoyed a positive start to the season, with six players new to Hong Kong, Australians Rachel Crothers and Martha Webber and two from UAE – Bernadette Bray and Jordan Rear. Chan credited captain Bobby Wilson for her work to integrate the new players into the side.

This week will give the newbies another opportunity to fix their places in the squad.

“CWB are physical, competitive, and skilful. So it’s always tough against them. We will work on keeping possession, especially in the contact area, where we expect them to challenge.

“The forwards will be crucial this weekend. They have a solid pack and we need to counter that. We’ll start with a similar line-up to last week and I hope to try one or two of the new arrivals to see how they go. Consistency is key for us, and was missing last week,” Chan added.

New Causeway Bay coach Chris Lin is hopeful to build off of last week’s win over City Sparkle; “That was a good start and built some confidence. City played very well actually but we have a lot of experienced players and they showed their ability well.”

Causeway Bay’s fortunes have been bolstered by a number of new dual registration players from lower level clubs including Bloomberg HK Scottish and Police Sirens. Lin understands that HKFC will test his depth.

“Football Club will be a challenge, and we are expecting that. They have some new players and have always had good ball carriers, so we need to keep control of the ball and the game. We hope to stretch them, take the ball around them, or hold the ball in the ruck,” Lin predicted.

“We want to keep our structures, so that we can play the patterns we have worked on. It’s important that we keep our discipline, as we know that Football Club will put up stiff opposition. We need to keep pressure on their defence. We also need to work more on our set pieces, as our pre-season preparation was not as thorough as I would have liked.

Lin will enter the weekend with most of his squad available, but missing inside centre Martini Ip Ka-ling.

Other Premiership matches see Eco Gai Wu taking on Kowloon (16.30 at Happy Valley); Societe Generale Valley against Transact 24 Tai Po Dragons (Happy Valley, 18.00) and Borrelli Walsh USRC Tigers against City Sparkle at Kings Park (18.00)