Feasting at the top table will be a mouthful for Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s opponents at next year’s HSBC Asian Five Nations Top Five competition have been decided with Japan once again winning the tournament for the sixth consecutive year since its inception in 2008 when it replaced the former Asian Rugby Football Tournament or Asiad.
Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines will be the four other teams in the home or away round-robin competition which next year will double up as the Asian qualifiers for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England. One team will gain automatic qualification and no bets as to who that will be.
The Brave Blossoms as the Japanese national team is known – they changed it from Cherry Blossoms as they must have felt that sounded a bit too feminine – has represented Asia at all previous World Cups since the inaugural tournament in 1987 when the International Rugby Board invited teams.
But subsequent editions of the quadrennial tournament have all had a comprehensive regional qualifying format and Japan has always emerged top dog from Asia.
Expect nothing to be different next year too which has left the rest of the field chasing the number two spot which will earn qualification into a repackage where teams will get another crack at qualifying by playing in a continental competition against other second-best teams.
This is the goal of Hong Kong. They have realised that Japan is a bridge too far and has set their sights on a more realistic target. But those ambitions were somewhat dampened last week by South Korea who hammered Hong Kong 43-22 in their final match in the A5N elite competition.
The result was sobering for Hong Kong who had hoped a second-place finish in Asia would be a psychological boost for the team as they look ahead 12 months down the road. Now they will prepare – and be sure the battle lines will be drawn well in advance by the Hong Kong coaching set-up – with the threat of the Koreans hanging over them.
The genesis of Hong Kong’s downfall was in the poor performance by its backs. The forwards won plenty of good ball matching the heavier Korean pack in the set-pieces, and played robustly. No. 8 Pale Tauti led a superb back row in the loose winning turnovers. But all the good possession was wasted by the three-quarters who lacked the creativity to beat the opponent’s defence.
Yet, Hong Kong coach Leigh Jones wasn’t downbeat for as he rightly assessed, next year would be a different kettle of fish with Hong Kong’s sevens stars hopefully back in the fray.
This time, the 12 members of the Hong Kong sevens squad did not play in the A5N as the focus was on trying to become a core team on the HSBC Sevens World Series. It meant the entire number one backline was missing. It was like Batman without Robin, or Bonnie without Clyde.
Jones is hopeful that the same situation faced this year where the sevens commitments clashed with the 15s will not occur again and that Hong Kong will be able to field their best side next year. But there is a silver lining in that Hong Kong has unearthed players, albeit not of the top drawer, who adequately filled the role of the absentee stars.For a place like Hong Kong, where the player base is small, this is a huge step forward. Without their best backs, Hong Kong still managed to defeat the United Arab Emirates 53-7, Philippines (59-20) and lost bravely to Japan 38-0. They managed to breach the Korean defence twice in the 43-22 loss. Those two tries matched against the seven Korea scored also proved the midfield defence was not as good with the Koreans deadly from broken play and when counterattacking.
But all these aspects will be tightened up with the return of the sevens’ stars. So Hong Kong can look forward with a degree of optimism next year. Sri Lanka, who comes up into the elite competition for the second time in seven years, will have their work cut out to be competitive.
The UAE who was relegated to Division one, and the Philippines found out the hard way at the difference in standards at the highest level. On the one hand you have Japan who is way above the rest, followed by Korea and Hong Kong of a similar standard. The UAE and the Philippines was way behind.
Japan has outgrown the rest of Asia. They have been in a class of their own for so long that now they use the A5N to blood new players. Their main competition comes in the Pacific Nations Cup against the likes of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the junior All Blacks, and playing test series against the United States and Wales this season.
If Japan is the big shot in Asia, on the world scene they are pushovers. In all their appearances at the World Cup – seven – they have only won once against Zimbabwe in the 1991 edition and drawn twice against Canada, 2007 and 2011. This goes to show the vast gulf in standards between Asia and the rest of the world.