Lankan lasses win one in two games
Sri Lanka finished third of Pool ‘A’ with a win and a loss after the first day of the Asian Rugby Sevens Series Qualifier which is now on in Guangzhou, China. The tournament also serves as a qualifier for the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Sri Lanka lasses may find their group rivals hard to overcome, as the Pool ‘A’ is already topped by China with two wins, and Hong Kong above them. Sri Lanka lost their first game against Hong Kong by 7-27 with the experienced Anusha Attanayake scoring the solitary try. Anushka Samaraweera made the conversion. For Hong Kong Ka Yan Chong scored a hat-trick and Hoi Yan Poon and Anna Birkett scored a try each.
However Sri Lanka made amendments to their disastrous first outing to comprehensively defeat South Korea by 19-5 in the second group game. Attanayake, Dulani Pallikkondage and Umayangana Gamage braced a try each, while Samaraweera put over two of the tries. Donglee Kim scored the solitary try for the Koreans.
China heads Pool ‘A’ with wins against Hong Kong (42-7) and South Korea (49-0) and has made a headstrong start to finish off winners of the competition. Hong Kong’s only win on the first day came against the Lankans, after they were beaten by China. South Korea is placed bottom of the table with two losses — against China and Sri Lanka.
Today Sri Lanka will take on China with the intention of securing a win and move ahead to the Cup segment of the knockouts, which will give them a ray of hope of an unlikely win. Hong Kong will have very little work to beat the Koreans, unless an upset takes place, opening up the tournament.
Pool ‘B’ is headed by Kazakhstan, who earned two wins under their belt after beating Thailand (17-12) and thrashing the Philippines (34-5). Despite Thailand’s loss against the Kazakhs, they managed to hand Singapore a 33-0 thrashing to finish second in the table. Singapore lost to Thailand earlier on, but they bounced back with a thrilling 20-19 win against the Philippines to secure the third slot. Philippines lost both games and sits at the bottom.
Today Thailand will take on bottom seed Philippines in the opening game of the day, followed by the game against Kazakhstan and Singapore before the remaining Pool ‘A’ games kick off. The tournament will then proceed with the knockouts. China is tipped to join hosts Japan in the Olympics from the qualifiers.