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World rugby: European season ends, Japan on a roll

Roar Guru
2nd June, 2014
13

Vientiane was the venue last week for the Asia Division II East Rugby Championships. In the first round played mid-week, top seeded Guam easily accounted for the hosts, Laos, with a 48-10 thumping.

The other match was eagerly awaited as the IRB wanted to gauge whether China had improved.

Women’s rugby in China is progressing quite well but the men have lagged behind, mainly due to officialdom. In fact the men had not won an international since 2011, hence its dropping through the divisions. China played Indonesia and came through with a 10-6 victory.

In the finals, China showed that it can play when needed and took the division with a decisive 41-10 win over Guam. The minor game was a hard-fought affair with Indonesia edging out Laos in an 11-10 win. The game was marred by a flurry of yellow cards in the final 10 minutes as tempers frayed and control was lost. How next year’s tournament is comprised is yet to be determined by the Asia RFU.

Europe’s final division game was played on the weekend in Turku. This was a division 2D match which had the closest table of all the European groups. The home team, Finland, needed a win to avoid relegation and Bosnia and Herzegovina needed a bonus point to make a promotion play-off. Guess what happened? Exactly that.

A small crowd of 200 saw Bosnia lead 20-7 at half time, but then Finland, to the chants of “Suomi, Suomi”, stormed home to win 29-25 with four tries to three. It meant Finland grabbed the needed win while Bosnia got the needed losing bonus point. Some have called it a “stew” but there is no evidence of this.

Bosnia and Herzegovina will now play Austria this month for a place in the 2C division. Division cellar-dweller, Greece, is relegated to the third division and replaced by Turkey in the 2D division. There are two other promotion play-offs scheduled this month, Croatia and Latvia for the 2A division and Hungary and Denmark for the 2B group.

Japan caused a bit of an upset when it played Samoa in Tokyo. Scoring three tries to two, the Brave Blossoms beat the islanders 33-14. The accurate goal kicking from Ayumu Goromaru, who converted the three tries and kicked four penalties, was the difference between the two teams. Japan has now won seven successive games, its longest winning streak ever.

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Only one NACRA game was played last week. It was in the minor north division played at Providenciales where Bahamas had a 13-11 win over Turk and Caicos Islands.

The Rugby World Cup qualifying matches for Africa will be played in June in Antananarivo, Madagascar. The competing nations are Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The winner will be Africa’s representative in the finals and will be placed in pool C. The runner-up will proceed to the repechage and is drawn to play Russia.

Also this month, Fiji will play Cook Islands. The winner will be placed in Rugby World Cup pool A as Oceania’s representative.

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