Asian 7s heats up

Eight Asian women’s teams are taking part across both the Series and Olympic qualifiers: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Uzbekistan.

Japan are the favourites after their superb showing in Ireland recently where they not only won the overall title, they also qualified alongside the hosts for next year’s World Series, getting one over on their old rivals China along the way, who have lost their spot for next season.

The Japanese are without doubt the coming team on the Asian scene with their U20s 7s side also going well ,winning the region’s age-grade series recently.

Hong Kong, who host the start of the Olympic qualifiers in November, will be looking for improvement from their showing in Ireland, where they reached the Plate Final, coach Anna Richard said.

“It is the dream of every girl in the programme to play in the Olympics, but Asia is still extremely important to us. It’s good that we have two tough tournaments on the Series before November - and against the teams we will play in the Olympic qualifiers.”

Richards’ side has recorded a couple of notable wins against defending Asian champions China already this year at the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Women’s Sevens in March and in Ireland.

“It was good to get the win against China in Dublin, especially in a close game like that. That was their front line team, while the China side in Hong Kong may have been a bit inexperienced. It will give the girls confidence. With back to back wins it’s important that we maintain that momentum but we’re in the same pool so will be facing them again in Qingdao. China is a very good side so we are expecting another extremely tough match,” added Richards.

The experience in Ireland will have helped prepare the team for the challenges that await on this year’s Series:

“Tournaments give you momentum,” said Richards.  “It was tough in Ireland because we hadn’t had a tournament in four months. There was a sizeable time difference, conditions were cold and wet and we hadn’t traveled that far before for a tournament. Then losing Royce [captain Royce Chan] to injury in the first game put a bit of strain on the team and that may have shown in the Plate final versus Brazil. We were a bit tired. But considering all this I was pleased with how we played in Ireland,” said Richards.

Hong Kong are pooled alongside China, Sri Lanka and Singapore in Qingdao.

Japan head a physical Pool B alongside Kazakhstan, Thailand and Uzbekistan.