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Rugby, studying and flying

WORDS: MR DAVID ASHTON

Tom McColl (’02) has had a remarkable rugby career which has included captaining the Hong Kong rugby team in a tour of Europe and in a five-nations Asian series. In the meantime he has completed an education degree and gained a commercial pilot’s licence.

Completing Year 12 in 2002, he was offered a rugby scholarship to Sydney University, where Tom says he ‘spent the majority of the time playing rugby for Sydney University Rugby Club.’

He played three seasons at that club – two years in the colts team, winning two premier-ships, and one season in reserve grade.

‘In 2005 I was selected in the Australian under 21 squad,’ Tom told Great Scot, ‘but I wasn’t selected in the final squad that went to the world championships.’ He was however selected in the Australian Universities’ rugby team.

‘I moved on to Southern Districts Rugby Club in 2006 for two seasons, playing first grade in the Sydney premiership, before moving to Randwick Rugby Club for one season in 2008.

Then an international door opened for Tom. ‘At the end of 2008 I moved to Hong Kong to take up an opportunity to play for the Hong Kong national team. I made my debut for Hong Kong at the end of 2009 on tour in Europe, where I dislocated my shoulder and had to sit out the qualifiers for this year’s World Cup in New Zealand.’

But his fortunes were to take a turn for the better. ‘I was selected as captain of the Hong Kong team for a tour to Europe and managed to hold onto the captaincy for the recent Asian five-nations rugby tournament, where Hong Kong came second behind Japan.

‘This was the best result Hong Kong has ever had in the tournament, and we reached the highest world ranking Hong Kong has ever achieved (26). Hopefully there will be two spots available for Asian nations at the next World Cup in 2015, one of which Hong Kong is aiming at taking.’

At the time of writing Tom was training for an International Rugby Board Asian sevens series in August. GS

Updated: Monday 24 June 2013