Dan Carter's old team-mate one win away from making World Cup history

Matt Worley will be back rubbing shoulders with the biggest names in rugby if Hong Kong China beat South Korea in the Asia Rugby Championship title decider in Incheon this Saturday.

From the evidence so far, there is very little to suggest that Hong Kong China won’t come out on top and qualify for Rugby World Cup 2027 as the region’s champions.

Leading the competition’s log by three points and chasing a sixth consecutive title, Hong Kong China swept aside UAE and Sri Lanka in the first two rounds and are overwhelming favourites to register a 13th straight win over Korea, who are also bidding to make it to a Men’s Rugby World Cup for the first time in history.

Worley will have only just turned 30 by the time the tournament in Australia kicks off, and based on current form – he has scored 16 tries in 14 Tests, a strike rate as good as any in the game – the winger/ful-back will likely be one of Hong Kong China’s main threats if they make it there.

After a brief spell at Northampton Saints in the Gallagher Premiership, Worley has spent most of his professional career out of the spotlight at Bedford Blues in England’s Championship.

Before he joined Saints, though, he found himself in the same company as All Blacks legends such as three-time World Rugby Player of the Year winner Dan Carter and prolific wing Joe Rokocoko, due to a sponsorship arrangement between his club in Hong Kong China and Racing 92, who were both backed by wealth management company Natixis.

Worley joined Racing’s espoirs (U23s)  as a scrum-half, but being a non-French speaker in a position that requires good communication led to him shifting to the back three, where he trained alongside Carter, Rokocoko and France full-back Brice Dulin, before making his senior debut in a pre-season friendly against the Durban-based Sharks in 2018.

“I was quite lucky, it was a partnership between our football club here. Because we’re both sponsored by Natixis, they sent a player over here for a 10s tournament, and me and a team-mate went over for three weeks and three weeks turned into three years,” he explained.

“I was planning to do a gap year, do a bit of sevens here and maybe go to university afterwards, but that all changed, and I found myself mingling with some of the names they had.

“Dan Carter had literally just signed, so he was the hot topic in French rugby at the time and guided the team into the Top 14 in his first season. There were a number of All Blacks – Joe Rokocoko and Anthony Tuitavake – they were in their peak years.

“Going from being a schoolboy in Hong Kong and watching them all on the telly, to literally training with the space of a year and a half was pretty nice to be fair.”

Worley was born in Plymouth, England, but moved to Hong Kong China when he was five, after his dad got a job over there with HSBC.

He played all the way through the national team age groups before making his Test debut against Saturday’s opponents, Korea, in a thrilling 23-21 win in 2022.

The country’s return to test rugby after a three-year hiatus couldn’t because of Covid-19 couldn’t have been any more dramatic, with Hong Kong China needing Gregor McNeish’s past-minute penalty to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

For Worley, it heralded the start of Hong Kong China’s rebirth as a rugby nation and gave the team the platform to kick on and put themselves firmly in the World Cup qualification conversation.

“Hopefully, it won’t be as close as it was in 2022, coming down to that final kick,” said Worley, who will spend next season back in Hong Kong, playing for his hometown club, the Hong Kong Football Club.

“That win probably pretty much projected Hong Kong rugby to where it has been for the last couple of years. Had we missed out on that win, we don’t know where we would be in the rugby world. So credit to Gregor for slotting it.

“I really feel like it put us in a good place, and the opportunity we have this coming Saturday is one I don’t think many kids in Hong Kong would have actually dreamt of, so it is pretty special to have that to play for.”

Chile became the first tournament debutant in 12 years when they qualified for the 2023 World Cup, but another first-time participant is guaranteed in Australia, as neither Hong Kong China nor Korea have made an appearance on the game’s grandest stage before.

“It would be pretty mental to be honest,” admitted Worley, who scored a hat-trick in the 78-7 win over Sri Lanka.

“No one growing up in Hong Kong playing their rugby on a Sunday morning expects to be competing or potentially be competing at a World Cup, it is something that none of us would ever expect.

“To be able to do it for Hong Kong, somewhere you call home, I think it would mean so much to us as players, but also to the fans and younger kids who probably look at the team as idols and role models.

“I think it will really inspire the next generation of rugby in Hong Kong and even outside of Hong Kong; hopefully it will show developing nations, look, we can do it as well. It’ll just be good for rugby in general, I think.”

If Hong Kong China do get there, Worley and Dan Carter will have something else in common. Expecting him to be man of the match in the final, like Carter was in 2015, might be a stretch, though.