Kazakhs are the team to beat
The qualifying games for the twelfth and final place in the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2010 will start today in Singapore.
Two semi-finals will take place at the Republic Polytechnic, with the winners playing each other on Friday at the Padang, for the honour of representing Asia in England next August.
Kazakhstan will start as firm favourites to qualify for their fifth World Cup Finals. They are seeded one and are by some way the team with the most international exposure. They are also by some way the biggest side physically and Hong Kong, their first opponents will have to find some way of combating that advantage.
Some of the Kazakhstan national squad have been acclimatizing to the South East Asian weather conditions by participating in last weekend’s Bangkok Sevens tournament, for their club side Olimp. They seem to have had little difficulty and won the cup, only conceding points in their final against the Arabian Gulf national team.
Today’s opponents for Kazakhstan will be Hong Kong. They are seeded 4th and have only played 12 full international games. They have been training as a squad since mid August and played 3rd seeds Singapore in a friendly match in October. They managed to edge that game 22-17 and a boost for coach Andrew Tranent was the form of debutant Becky Underwood, who ran in three tries on the day.
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Hong Kong's Becky Underwood |
Tranent told us that his charges have been focusing on developing team patterns in attack and defence and trying to devise the best options to unsettled the powerful Kazakhs.
Today’s first game will see the hosts Singapore, seeded 3rd take on second seeds Japan. Singapore’s team is comprised entirely of players from the two dominant club sides Blacks and Singapore Recreation Club. They will be captained by experienced, goal kicking flanker Wang Shao Ing and they will welcome back Australian based flyer Derelyn Chua. They also will be buoyed by the rapid recovery from injury of Ang Weiyi, who dislocated her shoulder only three weeks ago. She will take her place in a dynamic second row alongside Sophie Ngin Gollifer.
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Singapore's Derelyn Chua |
Singapore has prepared for this tournament with friendly games against Malaysia and Hong Kong and will be hoping that home advantage and enthusiastic local support will give them the edge.
The Japanese, who aside from the Kazakhs are the only other team to have been to the World Cup Finals, with appearances in 1994 and 2002. They have warmed up for the qualifiers with a tour to British Columbia, Canada, but defeats by a local club side and the provincial team will not have given their coaches or players a great deal of confidence and they will be only too aware that their last victory over Singapore, in the 2008 Asian Championship was a narrow one at 17-10. Japan have only actually played eight international games in the seven years since their appearance at the 2002 Finals in Spain and this lack of exposure may well be their undoing.
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Japan team talk |
There is a distinct possibility that Singapore might upset the pre-tournament seeding ala Sweden’s giant killing efforts over Spain and Italy in May, however we don’t see any way past the Kazakhs for any of these teams.
Images courtesy: JRFU, Andrew Tranent and Kong Ping
This article is also available in the following Country/s. Singapore, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong
