Qualifying for the 2023 Rugby World Cup for Asia commenced in June 2022, with three teams competing for a spot in a Regional play-off match against Oceania 2.
Format The Asia Rugby Championship, governed by Asia Rugby, is the regional qualification tournament for Rugby World Cup 2023, with only the leading Asian Championship league acting as the process. Three teams will participate across two matches, with the winner of the Asian Cup semi-final progressing to play the highest ranked participating team Hong Kong in the Asian Cup final. The winner of the final will advance to an Asia/Pacific play-off match against the winner of Oceania Round 3, Tonga (Oceania 2).
Originally planned for May 2021, the Championship was postponed due to health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and had been pushed back multiple more times to allow ample time for teams to participate safely owing COVID-19. This also meant multiple restructures of the competition from a round-robin format home and away to just a single round of fixtures played out of a neutral venue.
In April 2022, the format changed once again, following the withdrawal of Hong Kong, setting up a 2-match play-off between South Korea and Malaysia. However, on 29 April, Asia Rugby confirmed the final format for the competition which included Hong Kong back in the competition.
Entrants Three teams competed for the Asian qualifiers for the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Nation Rank Began play Qualifying status 22 9 July 2022 Advances to Asia/Pacific play-off as Asia 1 on 9 July 2022 10 N/A Qualified with Top 12 finish at 2019 World Cup 51 4 June 2022 Eliminated by South Korea on 4 June 2022 29 4 June 2022 Eliminated by Hong Kong on 9 July 2022
Round 1: Asian Rugby Championship Cup Semi-Final
Cup Final
Team details FB 15Jeong Yeon SikRW 14Hwang In JoOC 13Lee Soo PyengIC 12Kim Yong HwiLW 11Kim Kwang Min (c)FH 10Kim Ki Min SH 9 Lee Geon N8 8 Park Joon Young OF 7 Noh Ok KiBF 6 Kim Yo HanRL 5 Shin Da Hyeon LL 4 Kim Dae Hwan TP 3 Kang Sun Hyeok HK 2 Yu Si Hoon LP 1 Na Kwan Young Replacements:PR 16Lee Hyen Soo HK 17Choi Ho Young PR 18Shin Ki Soo LK 19Choi Seong Deok LK 20Park Jun Beom SH 21Lee Myeong Jun FH 22On Ji Myeong FL 23Moon Jeong Ho Coach: Lee Myung Geun FB 15Jack NevilleRW 14Charles Higson-Smith OC 13Benjamin Axten-BurrettIC 12Tom Hill LW 11Matthew Worley FH 10Glyn Hughes SH 9 Bryn Phillips N8 8 Joshua Hrstich (c)OF 7 Jame SawyerBF 6 Jame CunninghamRL 5 Patrick JenkinsonLL 4 Mark Prior TP 3 Ashton Hyde HK 2 Alexander Post LP 1 Faizal Solomona Penesa Replacements:HK 16John McCormick-Houston PR 17Ian Etheridge PR 18Zacceus Cinnamond LK 19Kyle SullivanFL 20Luke van der Smit SH 21Jack Combes FH 22Gregor McNeish CE 23Nathan de Thierry Coach: Lewis Evans Assistant referees: Noriaki Hashimoto (Japan) Teruhisa Kajiwara (Japan) Television match official: Minoru Fuji (Japan)
References
External links Rugby World Cup Official Site