Unbeaten Uruguay pose serious World Cup worry for Hong Kong
Only one team remain unbeaten in the IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy and it isn’t Japan or Tonga, who contest Saturday’s final. It is Uruguay, whose performances over the past two weeks will have set off alarm bells among Hong Kong’s senior team management.
Only one team remain unbeaten in the IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy (JWRT) and it isn’t Japan or Tonga, who contest Saturday’s final. It is Uruguay, whose performances over the past two weeks will have set off alarm bells among Hong Kong’s senior team management.
The South Americans entered the competition seeded sixth and were expected to be also-rans in a pool which included Canada (second seeds), Japan (third) and Namibia (seventh).
But Uruguay showed they are an all-round fine product, beginning the tournament with a courageous 33-28 victory over Japan before pulling off one of the shock results by holding Canada to an 18-18 draw.
Uruguay’s impressive run will bother Hong Kong’s senior team, who are likely to be heading to Montevideo later this year [as part of] the qualifying process for the 2015 World Cup
Uruguay rounded off the pool competition with a 16-13 win over Namibia and then watched anxiously, hoping Canada would do them a favour by beating Japan, allowing them to go through to the finals. But Japan’s slick backs made mincemeat of the Canadians.
So, how come a team who remained undefeated didn’t make it to the final? It was simply because Japan clinched four bonus points, the most by any team, to finish top of Pool B on 12 points.
Crucially, Japan scored the four tries needed for a bonus point in losing to Uruguay, but they also finished within seven points to earn another bonus point. These two points were the difference between finishing top and finishing as runners-up.
Uruguay’s impressive run will bother Hong Kong’s senior team, who are likely to be heading to Montevideo later this year to play in the preliminary repêchage match in the qualifying process for the 2015 World Cup in England.
Uruguay finished second best to the United States in the American qualifiers and will now meet the second-best team in Asia, where the regional qualifiers start this month with the Asian Five Nations Top Five competition.
Hong Kong has already sets its eyes on that runners-up slot, taking a pragmatic approach that unless something short of a miracle occurs, Japan will grab first place once again and claim the automatic berth.
So Hong Kong will have to take a “back door approach” and, providing they beat South Korea, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the first team standing in their way will be Uruguay.
Head coach Leigh Jones has been a keen observer at every game in the JWRT and I’m sure Uruguay’s performance will have reinforced his views that the South Americans will be no pushovers.
Uruguay’s game is built on defence. They have conceded only seven tries in their three games, the lowest by any team in their pool. One could expect a strong and powerful pack playing in this same fashion waiting to greet Hong Kong at the end of that long flight to the Uruguayan capital.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong under-20s have looked a little out of place against the US, Tonga and Georgia. The last game against Georgia was easily their best in that they performed for a full 80 minutes, something they had failed to achieve in their first two games.
While the forwards have shown they can hold their own in the set-pieces, Hong Kong have been outplayed in the loose and at the breakdown.
If we were to take the performance and progress of Uruguay and Hong Kong in the JWRT and predict the outcome of the World Cup qualification process based entirely on these readings, the future doesn’t look rosy.
But, that is probably too simplistic as way of looking at things. Perhaps our senior team has more X-factor players capable of pulling of a surprise.
Only time will tell.
