Kazakhstan was crowned Asian 15s champions after they trounced Japan 49-17 to remain unbeaten in the four-team Asian Women’s Rugby Championship at Aberdeen Stadium on Saturday.
Hosts Hong Kong, who started the tournament as the fourth seeds, finished runners-up after hammering Singapore 53-5 in their last match. Hong Kong, who had also beaten Japan (15-14) earlier in the tournament, lost to Kazakhstan 13-10 in their decisive clash.
Hat-tricks from flyhalf Rose Fong and winger Natasha Olsen-Thorne propelled the home team to victory as Hong Kong proved far too strong for Singapore dotting down nine tries in a one-sided rout.
“I’m pretty happy and we are getting closer to where we want to be, but as a coach, you always want more from the players,” said Hong Kong coach Chris Garvey. “Today was the closest that we have been to getting where I want this group to be. Credit to the girls, two of whom got hat-tricks and showed a couple of individual moments of brilliance, but the team effort has allowed those individuals to shine,” Garvey said.
Garvey and Hong Kong will look back and reflect on the narrow loss to Kazakhstan in their opener which in the end prevented them from being crowned Asian champions. “Overall I’m very pleased. If we are being honest with ourselves we never thought we would get anything out of the Kazakhstan match and we thought the Japan match would be extremely tough but the girls have surpassed their own expectation.
“We set out to get third place but finished runners-up which is fantastic,” Garvey added. Hong Kong captain Christy Cheng Ka-chi added: “This tournament has given us a lot of confidence and we can see ourselves capable of being Asia No.1 in the future.”
Japan finished third with Singapore propping up the rest.
