January trainings

Fellow Giants, 

First sessions of 2013, before the 2nd part of the season starts. Time to give your best to finish the season well!

All the sessions will be held at the Wan Chai Park playground, you can find the map through this link.

- Tuesday 15th January, 22h00 to 23h00,

- Thursday 17th January, 20h00 to 21h00,

- Saturday 19th January, 18h00 to 19h00,

- Wednesday 23rd January, 20h00 to 21h00,

- Tuesday 29th January, 22h00 to 23h00,

- Thursday 31st January, 22h00 to 23h00.

See you all down at the pitch!

HK Giants/Yuen Long

This Saturday 15^th, the HK GIANTS were down for the first to Tseung Kwan O to play their last game in 2012. After a long debate on which was the fastest way, we arrived to the pitch and get changed, ready to kick some asses.

Our opponents of the day were Yuen Long, 5^th position, young and fast team. We were focus and determined to not make the same mistake as our last game, when we lost focus and motivation and completely jumped out of the game in 2^nd half.

With, again, 14 players on the game sheet, a proper warm up and a few shots on our sick keeper, we started the first half in attack. The first few minutes showed a very strong defense, leaving no opportunities to our opponents to shoot. Hopefully, their keeper successfully stopped our first few shots as well, to make sure we can’t get the lead. After 8 minutes, the score was 2-2 and our defense in 5-1 pushed them many time to the last seconds allowed in attack. On our side, the few nice combinations that we set up didn’t end up as goals, but were definitely good signs of the health of our attack.

The score didn’t evolve much until the 15^th minutes, getting our first time-out on the draw score of 5-5. But then, they started to use combinations for their left wing, and we didn’t react early enough, letting them score a 6-1 within 10 minutes, giving them a 5 goals lead (11-6) 5 minutes before the half time. Hopefully, we manned up the last minutes to get back and reach the break with a 3 goals gap, 11-8.

The speech during half time was clear. Keep our control, don’t try to rush out and play individually and play our match. The first 7 players went back on the pitch, fully motivated to win this game.

And it worked. After scoring 2 goals in a row in the first 2 minutes, we were back in the game, chasing our opponents. It went back and forth until the 8^th minutes, when they get back a 3 goals lead. But for the first time, the GIANTS didn’t lose focus and stayed in the game, which brought us to score a 6-1 in 15 minutes, getting us to lead by 2 goals (19-17).

Then, our German Max decided it was a bit too easy, and on a counter-attack, successfully got a red card straight away. With 4 minutes on the clock and a 2 minutes penalty, the end of the game was stressful. But our 6 players definitely nailed this period, scoring 2 goals and stopping one counter attack, which gave us 2 goals lead while back 7 on the pitch.

The last 2 minutes and the aggressive defense of our opponents didn’t change anything, and the final whistle saw our victory on the final score of 22-20.

This game showed that we have the level for this division, as well as team, individual and mental capacity to present well. Some details are still perfectible, but in the end, we played a strong game, showing mental resources and strong team spirit.

With now 3 victories for 4 lost, we’re securing our place in first division. Top 5 is still reachable with 2 games to go before the end of regular season, especially that we’re playing the 1^st and 6^th of the actual ranking, so direct opponents for a place in Top 5.

As usual, a few highlights. Paul, Florian and Marcel, who ended up best scorers of the game with 4 goals each. Tim, our sick keeper who stopped a few important shots. Max, who successfully get the 2^nd red card of the history of the team. And to all the other players, who came and maybe didn’t play much, but your presence was very important for the team.

We’re done with 2012, next games will be in 2013 and we’ll definitely need to start over with another win. Before that, the HK GIANTS will gather for their Christmas dinner and share a few beers before everyone enjoy the holidays!

See you all very soon on the pitch.

Wai Tou/HK Giants

The HK GIANTS were playing against Wai Tou this last Saturday 8th. The 8th position team against the 4th one, all the ingredients to make a nice game, if only we could keep our focus and don’t play a second half same as the last game.

Arrived at the pitch, full of volley ball and badminton players, your favorite reporter lost 10L of water and felt his heart beat going through the ceiling, thinking he might have mixed up the pitch! Fortunately and after confirmation, we were at the right place and we could get changed.

For our first time in our froggy green jerseys, we were 14 players on the game sheet and almost had 5 minutes to warm up our keeper, which is probably what disturbed us. After a powerful “Mushi Nass”, the GIANTS were on the pitch, ready to show off and win this game.

And it worked. The first minutes were ours, scoring a 3-0 in 5 minutes. Our opponents couldn’t find a good shooting position, and when they did, can’t score thanks to their poor accuracy or our keeper! But then, their number 13 woke up and scored 2 goals in a row to bring them back in the game. The following 20 minutes were pretty similar, with a strong defense that blocked all their attempts to shoot at the goal when on our side, we were scoring a few goals to keep a 3 goals lead. The accuracy was not good, but enough to keep a margin.

Unfortunately, and as usual with the GIANTS, the last 5 minutes of the period were the time to rest and a 12-9 in our favor became a 12-12 at the half time. Needless to say that wasting a 3 goals lead is not the best thing, especially when the other team is young and fit and will try to exhaust us.

The half time speech and recommendations were to start as the first half and get back a comfy lead then we can slow down and control the game.

Back on the pitch, the complete opposite happened. Defense was lost, attack even more and our opponents didn’t need that much to score a 4-0 in 5 minutes to lead 16-12. Finally, and after a time out, we scored our first goal at 11 minutes in the 2nd half. But that was too late and after 15 minutes, we were leaded by 6 goals.

Emotionally, we sank through the floor and multiplied wrong choices and mistakes. Poor passing, accuracy down to 0 and five 2 minutes penalty in 2nd half, the only objective was to limit the score gap. Giving them two more easy goals in the last minutes, the final score was 26-18.

Once again, the 2nd half was terrible, showing clearly our main problems. Passing, accuracy and focus. There is no need of training combinations if the ball can’t even roll up from left to right without problems. So we need to work the basis to not waste that many balls.

A few highlights, Angus and Tim, who made some very nice stops and saved us from a bigger defeat. Marcel, for his first game with the GIANTS end up best scorer with 4 goals. Florian and Joakim, who were really close to the red card with 2x2 minutes penalty each. A special thanks to the referees, who tried their best to be fair and despite all we could have thought during the game, really tried to helped us through HK rules. Thanks also to all the supporters came that day, take photos or just lie to us saying we played well, it’s always good to hear!

We have one last game in 2012, against Ho Kwok Pui Zhen, 5th position team. Needless to say that end the year on a win is a must do. And to get ready, we have a training session this Friday 14th from 20h00 to 21h00 at the Wan Chai Park.

Also, the HK GIANTS will have its Christmas dinner on Friday 21st at the Dog House TST, starting from 20h00. Try your best to come over and enjoy one more night with your mates. Wags, mistresses or stranger met on the street are all welcome, the more the best!

See you all very soon on the pitch, ready to rumble!!

Our first overseas fans!

As you probably read in the kits distribution night post, we met 2 American guys who fancied our social polos!

And after a tough flight back due to hangover, they made it home. Just on time to send this nice photo, proving that the GIANTS will soon take over the Handball world!

Alex and Matthew, we're waiting for you to come back to HK to share another few drinks!

Association annual dinner

This Saturday, the Handball Association of Hong Kong was holding it's annual dinner for 2011-2012 season awards.

As the great Division 2 champs we are until end of this season, needless to say that we were down there to get our medals and cup, and make sure people know who we are!

After sharing a few beers with different Handball actors, dismantle the cup in order to drink from it, a dark story between our old J and a chiken head and our few attempts to look cool, we ended up drunk.

Other teams now definitely know why we may be a bit slow on our Sunday's games...

Anyway, that was a great night, we show to the Association that we are involved and want to be part of the HK Handball family.

Let's get the positive stuff up, a place in the top 5 of first league is easily reachable for us so let's make the maximum to do it!

Here some photos of that night, to see the terrible truth!