2011 Asian Five Nations under way
Roar Guru By Harry Kimble, 27 Apr 2011 Harry Kimble is a Roar Guru
The Asian Rugby Five Nations Championship opening round was held on the Easter weekend. Japan, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong remain from last year but Korea was dropped to the lower division for the first time, replaced by Sri Lanka.
The other team to make up the five is United Arab Emirates.
This is the reconstituted Arabian Gulf side which played in the previous years. The reason is because the Asian Rugby Union was not happy with the pro-western make-up of the Arabian Gulf Rugby Union, wanted local Arab players to participate and also be the name of a nation.
It is also thought that the team will be eligible for the Asian Games. Because of their strength, the UAE came in as top division team and did not have to come through the promotion and relegation system.
Two Arab players, Ali Mohammed and Mohammed Shaker were selected as reserves for the opening game. Probably Hong Kong is not much better with only four Chinese named in their 22-man squad.
Japan received the bye in the opening round. Because of the nuclear crisis, it has had both its home games transferred so will play all games away. The match against Sri Lanka will be held in Colombo and that against Kazakhstan in neutral Bangkok.
The opening game was in Almaty where Kazakhstan hosted Hong Kong who they beat last year. The Kazakh side was weakened because Russian and European club teams would not release players for the match.
This led to Hong Kong taking a two try lead of 20-3 at half time and looked likely to win easily. However, in the second half, Kazakhstan played rough-house and had two forwards red-carded but the method unsettled the visitors who were able to hang on for a 23-10 win and reversed last year’s result.
The second half was quite brutal and amounted to a war of attrition. It seems Kazakhstan will need its top players if it wants to retain its second placing of last year.
The other match was held in Colombo in pouring rain between the re-formed UAE and Sri Lanka. It was all mud and slush on the waterlogged ground and not surprisingly, it was scoreless at half-time. The second half came alive as Sri Lanka took an 8-0 only to see the UAE claw back to lead 13-8. Sri Lanka levelled at 13 all with an unconverted try.
The weather was not conducive to goal kicking and both sides missed several attempts.
Close to full-time, the local crowd of 4,000 moaned in dismay as a certain Sri Lankan try was disallowed on the because the ball was not grounded properly on a touch judge’s call.
The UAE attacked and went close to scoring after the bell but the Sri Lankan defence held, only to give away a penalty but the visitors missed the kick in the quagmire so the game ended in a 13-all draw with each side scoring two tries. This was a good result for the newly promoted Sri Lankan team.
Next Friday, UAE will play Kazakhstan in Abu Dhabi and on Saturday, Hong Kong will host Japan.
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April 27th 2011 @ 7:46am
kovana said | April 27th 2011 @ 7:46am | Report comment
Great article and thanks for the update of the Asian 5 Nations.. Good to see Sri Lanka back. 4’000 for a game is not too bad.
April 27th 2011 @ 8:54am
Red Menace said | April 27th 2011 @ 8:54am | Report comment
The Sri Lankan UAE game was live on Foxtel Saturday night. It was on Eurosport. It wasn’t a bad game considering all the rain.
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April 27th 2011 @ 11:03am
Harry Kimble said | April 27th 2011 @ 11:03am | Report comment
There is a good chance that the Hong Kong / Japan match will also be shown on Eurosport on Saturday. It begins at 4.00 PM. HK time which is 6.00PM, AEST. Worth checking out.
April 27th 2011 @ 11:01am
mattamkII said | April 27th 2011 @ 11:01am | Report comment
Asian rugby in going great guns but the trick is getting the balance between locals and expats representing a country.
A classic example is Singapore and Hong Kong.
Early this year Singapore and Hong Kong’s two strongest clubs met for their yearly fixture, I say strongest but, very much like the ABs, they both have a habit of winning everything but falling over at finals time.
Anyway, the Singapore Club team won by 1 point.
But if you put the two national sides up against each other Hong Kong would put 50 points on Singapore.
Why? Hong Kong has not race agenda while picking their team and even fly blokes back to play…while Singapore has a semi-quota system for the number of locals.
A couple of years back the Singapore team was hit by a local player strike as they thought they weren’t getting picked enough. Word is Singapore Sports Council even said they would hold back funding as there too many non-Singapore born players in the team. The truth is thats an anti western play as most of the other high profile sports in Singapore are flooded with main land Chinese etc and that’s fine.
Sure Hong Kong are up there now but are they doing the right thing to grow the game? The people in HK will tell you they grow grass roots in a different way.
Who ever is right is anyone’s guess but it will be an issue for a while.
I know many local kids love the game and plenty have talent
April 27th 2011 @ 11:21am
p.Tah said | April 27th 2011 @ 11:21am | Report comment
did you see the local/expat kids at the HK 7s running on the field as part of the tournament entertainment. There were about 1,000 of them and it took 30 minutes for them to march into the stadium. Boring as hell, but I was thinking how many kids in HK play rugby? perhaps they were just non-playing kids dressed in rugby gear.
April 28th 2011 @ 9:47pm
Moreton Bait said | April 28th 2011 @ 9:47pm | Report comment
p.tah, it might be a little boring to neutrals, but the mini rugby players and the adult sevens teams have marched past during the Sunday lunch break at the Sevens for years. The kids enjoy it. They all do really play rugby and there are a lot more training & playing rugby every Sunday during the season. They even have a Guinness world record http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Search/Details/Largest-touch/mini/tag-rugby-tournament/64382.htm
There would actually be well over 3000 5-11 year olds learning and playing rugby regularly in HK. Most are Chinese kids and expat kids from Western but also other Asian countries like China, Korea, Japan, India and the Philippines. Healthy grass roots, I’d say!
April 30th 2011 @ 12:15pm
p.Tah said | April 30th 2011 @ 12:15pm | Report comment
Boring as hell was a bit harsh, it was a great to see the joy on the kids faces but I was amazed at how many of them there were.. They just kept coming. If my kids were involved in something like that I’d think it was the greatest show on earth.
April 27th 2011 @ 12:15pm
King of the Gorgonites said | April 27th 2011 @ 12:15pm | Report comment
Great to see Sri Lanka amke it to the big league finally. with their playing numbers, they will go from strength to strength. 4K considering the weather was good. it will soon be 40K.
April 27th 2011 @ 1:31pm
kovana said | April 27th 2011 @ 1:31pm | Report comment
Lets hope so KOG..
April 27th 2011 @ 2:07pm
The Bush said | April 27th 2011 @ 2:07pm | Report comment
Disappointing for Kazakhstan, especially as I don’t believe the Russian Professional Rugby League has started yet. Surely Kazaksthan’s key players could be excused by their clubs from participating in warm-up games or camps?
Hong Kong has probably sown up second (2nd) spot with that away win, but I guess you never know in sport.
I saw a highlights reel of the Sri Lanka-UAE match, and the amount of water on the ground was absolutely ridiculous. I haven’t seen a pool of that depth since I last ran out for Easts 5th Grade on a friday night away match down in Logan…
Assuming Kazakhstan can obtain the services of their top players, you would assume they would account for the UAE and Sri Lanka. In that situation it now comes down to bonus points and the for-and-against to avoid relegation for those two (2).
However if Kazakhstan remains hamstrung then they may be looking down the barrel of a trip to the 1st Division…
April 27th 2011 @ 9:13pm
Working Class Rugger said | April 27th 2011 @ 9:13pm | Report comment
Apart from Japan this is looking like developing into a really competitive championship this season. We need to put Sri Lanka’s performance into perspective. They really should have won their home game (contentious call regarding the try, from what I saw it looked good.) against a UAE team that under the Arabian Gulf banner beat both HK and Kazakstan.
I’m actually excited to see what this championship will look like in 5 or so years time. Personally, I believe Japan have long since outgrown this championship. They would be better suited in moving on to an annual competition against the likes of the US and Canada. Could even add Uruguat and Chile into that fray. With both the Philipines and Iran rapidly ascending through the divisions it could soon require the top division to become a 6 nations format with a healthy distribution in Asia. In fact the top 3 division (A5N, D1 and D2) look to be developing rather rapidly which will be good for the game in Asia.
April 28th 2011 @ 10:25pm
Melb Rebel said | April 28th 2011 @ 10:25pm | Report comment
Rugby culture strong in HK. Even Singapore where it is played in schools plus compulsory forces training. Problem is no athletes! the real question for Asian Rugby is where is China and what can be done. Olympic 7′s is the start!
I always advocated Hong Kong having a team in the expanded S18. Can be like Rebels with a mixture of nationalities with some tokens but really would create the path for Chinese athletes. Also HK would be a commercial success.
Whilst I am commenting why didnt the s15 have all the aust teams playing NZ teams over Anzac weekend?? too simple to get TV ratings up. By the way when are we going to get an umbrella sponsor for Super Rugby!!
April 29th 2011 @ 8:43am
Working Class Rugger said | April 29th 2011 @ 8:43am | Report comment
Melb Rebel
The Chinese Ministry of Sport has recently approved the funding to fully porfessionalise their womens program with eyes on Rio, evidently the mens will competing more often this season in a bid to gain the same status. Furthermore, there will be a nationwide development program through each school prefecture from next year onward. The Chinese are coming, what impact they’ll have is still yet to be determined.
April 30th 2011 @ 4:55pm
Working Class Rugger said | April 30th 2011 @ 4:55pm | Report comment
Kazakstan will be feeling decidingly uncomfortable about continuing their tenure in Asia’s top division with their second 10-24 loss at home this time at the hands of UAE. They are really struggling without their legion of professionals currently restricted to club duty. Sri Lanka will be targetting this game as the game that will ensure their survival for another season.
May 1st 2011 @ 9:48pm
Davo said | May 1st 2011 @ 9:48pm | Report comment
Was up in HK so went out to see Japan play Hong Kong on Saturday amongst the horse racing track and surrounding high rises of Happy Valley. Small crowd – I’d guess a couple of thousand, probably 75-80% expat but you wouldnt be able to fit too many more in anyway. Very enthusiastic.
Japan won 45-22 having led 31-3 at halftime so they obviously eased off. Coach Kirwan seemed pretty unimpressed at the end of the game. In the first half Japan looked for all the world like a very good team. Great pace and skill in the backs, a good scrum half ( the two number 9s in their squad couldnt be more than 10 and a half feet between them ), an excellent mobile front row and one real gun flanker. And that’s just the local players. Amongst the ring-ins they’ve got a pretty crafty fly half and some giant Islander boys in the backrow/wing and some servicable tall timber in the second row. I think this Hong Kong team is one of the better ones in recent years so whilst Japan wont be that happy with the final score, to run-in 5 tries in the first half was a good effort.
Just had a look at the WC draw and I’ll go out on a limb and say Japan can beat both Canada and Tonga…..and if France are having a really off day…….you just never know.
Curtain raiser was HK v Japan Womens match. Was probably only 1/3 the crowd there but again plenty of noise and cheering and was actually highly entertaining. Japan won 15-0 with a couple of tries and there no.10 could teach a couple of Waratahs fly halves about running and passing the ball rather than kicking.
May 2nd 2011 @ 4:28pm
mattamkII said | May 2nd 2011 @ 4:28pm | Report comment
Hi Davo,
yep HK have become one of the strongest teams in Asia. But a lot depends on how many JP pro players where in the team. Given the time of the year I’d suggest it would have been an almost full strength squad. If so, HK could be happy with that. Only a few years back a top notch JP team would slaughter HK.
You watched it at HKFC…not a bad venue is it? I’ve played there a bit and love it.