New East China Rugby (ECR) Cup 2026-2027 Kicks Off With Hangzhou 10s

Exciting news from Eastern China’s social rugby clubs: the new East China Rugby (ECR) Cup league has formed, with seven founding clubs organising a series of Tens Rugby tournaments from 2026-2027, and the first event takes place this weekend; the Hangzhou 10s will be held on 31st October 2026.

For many years, China has had a healthy, robust social rugby scene, and the All China Cup (XVs) has been informally contested for a long time. The pandemic has reset a lot of the clubs and tournaments, and it seems as if the ECR looks to offer a regular season of tournaments for the clubs to compete in, and to expose the sport to more people.

We spoke with four presidents or club captains of founding clubs of the ECR and will publish the full interview next week.

What they could tell us, according to Ronan (Club Captain of Shanghai Rugby Football Club), was: “We started having conversations in terms of a format; it’s not really adding anything that we didn’t already have, as all of the clubs would all take turns hosting Tens tournaments throughout the year.

It’s all the same people, the same faces, same organisations, but we wanted to find a way that was a bit more structured, a bit more organised and get a set calendar out at the start of the year that would give players more time to get organised.

It would also give clubs more time to sort their fixtures and better manage their resources & finances, etc. Hopefully that will help us all to encourage more players into the game when they could see what is coming up and have a bit more of a tangible schedule for the entire season.”

Jake, President of the Hangzhou Harlequins, who host this weekend’s first event, added, “There is a lot of excitement being in a league. Working within our region to build grassroots rugby, and getting people excited about it, it is injecting a lot more energy into the smaller clubs regionally.

Hangzhou Harlequins is sponsored by the Hangzhou Rugby Association, which is in line with the China Rugby Football Association. It is great to have their support. It’s more of a partnership where they’ll help us out with match officials and the communication locally, with the padding for the posts and things like that. We try and work closely with them, and some of their staff play for us as well, which is great.”

Who Formed the ECR Cup?

The seven Chinese social rugby clubs that have formed the East China Rugby Cup league are:

• Changzhou Giants RFC
• Shanghai Rugby Football Club
• Hangzhou Harlequins Rugby Football Club
• Suzhou Late Knights
• Ningbo Rhinos
• Wuhan Baiji Rugby
• Yiwu Mustangs Rugby Club

Aidan, President of the Suzhou Late Knights, explained, “It is very exciting, and this weekend’s the first tournament, but I think in the long term, it’s gonna bring rugby back to where it was pre-pandemic. It creates more consistent rugby, and it’s allowing our clubs to stay afloat.

At the end of the day, rugby, like any social sport anywhere in the world, as an expat or a local, is about meeting new people and the social aspect of it. I think that’s what everyone’s looking for. That is why I appreciate the ECR league, as it’s a good way of exposing people to rugby in China.”

Hangzhou 10s 2026

The Hangzhou 10s is the first listed 10s tournament of the new Eastern China Rugby League formed this year and will feature 8 Men’s teams from the clubs in Eastern China.

It will take place on 31st October 2026 at the Liangzhu Softball, Baseball & Rugby Sports Centre.

Pool A

• Hangzhou Harlequins
• Wuhan Baiji
• Wuhan Baiji
• Suzhou Late Knights

Pool B

• Yiwu Mustangs
• Kunming Flying Tigers
• Shanghai Silver Dragons
• Wenzhou Spartans

Eastern China Rugby Cup Tournaments 2026-2027

There are two Tens Rugby tournaments planned in 2026, with four more in 2027 as part of the ECR. They will also look to field a 15s Rep team in the second half of 2027 for national competitions, alongside an occasional 10s side for overseas tournaments.

Alex, President of the Ningbo Rhinos, said, “The ECR League acts like a Sevens-style leaderboard. The team that finishes highest in each place will get maximum points, and each below in descending order. At the final tournament in Shanghai, the trophy will be handed to the winner, and the plan is to use it as a floating trophy that stays with that team for that year. They get to brag about it, and next season it all starts again.

Eventually, as more and more people start realising that the league is great and as it travels to our cities, and as more and more people will start also coming to our universities, which is where we get a majority of our players from, they’ll want to play some rugby.

They’ll help the league grow, and the quality of players coming through should improve, and more and more people will be talking about it.

We’re looking for a full tournament sponsor too for the ECR. We managed to get some awesome balls from Rhino, which is a massive thing for us. We’re not doing things individually; we’re doing it all as a full ECR collective.”

Some of the tournaments will also have Women’s Tens Divisions.

• 31st October 2026 –  Hangzhou 10s
• 14th November 2026 – Ningbo 10s
• 20th March 2027 – Wuhan 10s
• 17th April 2027 – Suzhou 10s
• 16th May 2027 – Yiwu 10s
• 5th June 2027 – Shanghai 10s

Sevens rugby has clearly been the focus of the CRFA (Chinese Rugby Football Association) over the years, since it became an Olympic sport in 2016, while many of the social and expat-heavy clubs lean towards tens and XVs rugby. Neither the Chinese Men’s nor Women’s XV has played a Test since pre-pandemic (2019).

Recently, Hong Kong China Rugby and CRFA provided further details of their signed MoU in April 2026, and it outlined plans to work towards building China’s National 15-a-side Club Rugby Competition as well as wider resource-sharing initiatives around creating rugby event IP, developing rugby-specific facilities and growing community participation programmes.

Stay tuned – Next week we will publish our interview with the ECR breaking down the plans and why the ECR is hoped to add impetus to growing the game in Eastern China rugby.

Asian Rugby Development News 2o26

• Hong Kong China Rugby and the Chinese Rugby Football Association Explain MoU.
• The Best Social 2026 Rugby Tournaments In Asia.
• Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and JRFU Extend MoU on Scrum Project.
• Hong Kong China Rugby and Japan Rugby Football Union Signed an MoU.