HONG KONG WIN TRI-NATIONS UNDEFEATED

19 January 2012, Harriet Millard

Hong Kong remained unbeaten to win a Tri-Nations series over neighbours Thailand and Chinese Taipei.

From 13 - 15 January Hong Kong played host to two of it's Asian neighbours in the first ever Tri-Nations International Tournament, held at Kowloon Park Sports Centre.

The event was designed to help promote netball and develop the National Teams from this region, and the hosts also lifted the trophy in front of the home crowd.

As these three nations rarely compete in international matches, the tournament provided invaluable international exposure.  All three teams will be participating in the Asian Open Netball Championships in August 2012 and hope to be more competitive amongst the top Asian Nations.

"As netball is still a very unknown sport to many people in Hong Kong, this type of tournament was able promote netball to the Hong Kong local community." said Hong Kong Netball Associaiton Technical Manager, Connie Wong.

"The more people know about it, more numbers we will get and hopefully we will then get more support from the government and sponsors. Hence we can develop the sport even more and be more competitive on the international stage.

"A lot of specators who watched netball for the first time all provided us with positive feedback and expressed how exciting the game was to watch."

Overall the weekend was a great success for Hong Kong as they went through the tournament undefeated and winning the trophy by beating Thailand in the final 45 to 25. Chinese Taipei played a Hong Kong Youth Team and won their first game 46 to 38.

Hong Kong hopes to host this event annually as this is an important stepping stone to develop our players and officials, and in general to develop the sport to the Hong Kong community.