“It was literally a whirlwind and a very, very steep learning curve, especially the first three months, coming to this brilliant environment with these fantastic players,” Vilk, 42, said.

He took the top job last August, just a month before the Asian Games, where his team won a historic bronze medal.

Vilk then had to contend with Asian Sevens Series competitions in South Korea and Bangkok, and an Olympic qualification tournament in Japan in November.

The globe-trotting start to his career in Hong Kong was replicated in the first few months of 2024, with the team playing as far away as South America.

“December was a bit of a wind down, but all that started gearing up again in January. Then that Olympic qualifier [in June] is a really exciting time and that’s really the bookend for this block [of fixtures].”

Earlier in March, his Hong Kong side recorded victories over Papua New Guinea and Kenya in the second leg of the Challenger series in Uruguay. The wins set up a seventh-place play-off, where they beat Kenya again.

Those positive performances were a significant turnaround from the opening leg in Dubai in January, when the team lost 0-19 and 33-0 to Argentina and Poland, respectively.

“It wasn’t easy in Dubai but sometimes [those losses] can give you that motivation to improve,” Vilk said.

“I don’t know whether, paradoxically, a long journey very far away from home, those kinds of challenges, often bind teams and the group off the pitch as well as in terms of buying into what we are doing.”

As a player, Vilk represented England in rugby sevens before spending a decade coaching Italy’s sevens team.

He said that when he first stepped through the door at Hong Kong, one of his priorities was to switch the side’s approach to games.

“I didn’t want us to focus on too much. A big thing for us is to focus on ourselves and our game plan, what we do well, while staying respectful of the opposition but not changing too much or worrying about what they do.

“And part of it was also understanding the team; some of these women have been here for 13 years, so I’m coming in and saying. ‘How can I adapt myself here and contribute my best ideas?’.

“Some of the things [we focused on] are just real basics. For me, I watched the team’s training before I came to Hong Kong and wanted to do lots of passing work, lots of decision-making, basically all those fundamentals.”

Vilk also explained how he has used the more experienced players in the squad to help nurture the youngsters through high-pressure situations.

“We often have technical, tactical and strategic meetings, and we do have meetings about expectations and how to handle certain scenarios.”

He added that before the Asian Games, athletes who had competed there spoke to those making their debut about what to expect. The squad also had meetings as they embarked upon their journey to Uruguay on how to manage fatigue and get ample rest during the long journey.

“You can’t recreate the experience of a major tournament beforehand, but at least we can talk about it and gain some understanding.”

The qualifier for the Paris 2024 Olympics in Monaco will see 12 men’s and 12 women’s teams battle it out for one place at the Olympics.

The tournament starts with a group stage before moving on to knockout rounds.

Despite the good results in the previous Challenger round and having finished third at the Asian Games, Vilk played down his team’s chances at Olympics qualification.

“It’s sevens, isn’t it? So, you never know,” he said.

“But what we do know, though, is that the quality of the opposition is very high. But, on our day, if we catch the tournament right, then that’s the beauty of sevens.”