Japan beats Hong Kong in HSBC Asian Five Nations Top Five

Former All Black John Kirwan was an unhappy man after rusty Japan eked out a 45-22 victory over Hong Kong to get their defence of the HSBC Asian Five Nations Top Five competition off to a winning start at Hong Kong Football Club.

Japan led 31-3 at the break but a spirited Hong Kong out-scored the Asian champions three tries to two in the second half leaving head coach Kirwan less than pleased.

 “The only positive out of this game was the win,” said Kirwan. “But I’d rather this happens now than later on this season. We have plenty of work to do.”

Japan ran in seven tries - five of them in the first half - with winger Alisi Tupuailai grabbing a hat-trick. No.8 Ryukoliniasi Holani, flyhalf Shaun Webb, left winger Hirotoki Onozawa and flanker Michael Leitch also scored one each. Centre Ryan Nicholas collected 10 points from the boot.

But the glut turned into a drought as Hong Kong bravely fought back and took their chances superbly to leave Japan in disarray by the end of the game.

 “It was a poor performance from our team,” Kirwan said. “We didn’t protect the ball and we lost our composure. I thought we were rusty at halftime, but we got rustier as the game wore on.”

Despite pre-game worries by Kirwan of a slow start, the players who are all in the preliminary World Cup squad came out firing on all cylinders, dominating both set pieces as well as in the loose to look threatening. But the spark died down after the break as a gutsy Hong Kong didn’t let up.

 “We got in their faces and put them under pressure,” said Hong Kong national coach Dai Rees. “This is the best performance in recent years against Japan and the guys can be very proud of themselves.”

Hong Kong’s second-half resurgence began with a lovely break from fullback Ross Armour, who made up for his first-half sin-binning, by slicing through the midfield and sending an inside pass to replacement winger Alex McQueen who scored under the posts.

Hong Kong then capitalised on Japanese errors to run in two more tries. The first came from openside flanker Mark Goosen, who picked up from a breakdown and took the direct route to the tryline catching the defence flatfooted. Then winger Rowan Varty turned on the speed when he picked up a dropped pass metres from his own line to run the length of the pitch and score.

 “We took our chances. We had two 50-50 chances to score tries and we took them,” Rees said. “We had an unfortunate first half and were hard done by in contact areas, but all credit to the guys for coming back strongly.”

Hong Kong captain Tom McColl praised his side for the resilience showed against Japan who has dominated the tournament since it began in 2008.