Kazakhstan closed the Asian Women’s Rugby Championship against Japan

Kazakhstan booked their place in the final of the 2023 Asian Rugby Women’s Championship, and as a result, their first WXV campaign, with an impressive 27-23 win against Hong Kong China on Tuesday.

The hosts had lost back-to-back matches against their visitors in Hong Kong last December, but turned the tables in Almaty to run in five tries to secure an important victory.

Kazakhstan will return to the Almaty Sports Training Center on Sunday to face Japan in an exhibition match as they bid to win their sixth Asian Rugby Women’s Championship.

The winner of the final will earn a place in WXV 2 in October, while the loser will be in WXV 3, meaning Kazakhstan are guaranteed to feature in World Rugby’s new annual global 15s competition.

I feel incredible, my team feels great, Kazakhstan captain Karina Sazontova said. We just wanted to win and we did.

On qualifying for WXV, he added: It means a lot to us because we’re representing Asia Rugby in this tournament and it’s unbelievable.

The result ends Hong Kong’s Chinese hopes of a second Asian Rugby Women’s Championship crown and means they will have to wait until at least 2024 to take part in the WXV.

“Of course we were disappointed because a lot of it was our mistakes and not following through on what we wanted to do,” Hong Kong China captain Natasha Olson-Thorne said.

Was going to learn from this game, come back and keep improving.

Hong Kong China had lost their previous meeting in Almaty, suffering a 40-0 defeat to their hosts in the Kazakh capital in 2015, and the visitors fell behind early on.

Kazakhstan winger Amina Tulegenova scored the first of her two tries, touching down in the left corner after a good team move.

However, Mariya Grishina missed the conversion and after Aileen Ryan reduced the deficit with a penalty, Hong Kong China took the lead when Qian Jiayu crossed.

However, Hong Kong’s Chinese lead only lasted a short time. A handling error on the restart was punished by Tulegenova, who pounced on the ball before reaching it and touched it down just before it went dead.

Ryan scored her second penalty of the match to put the visitors back in front, 11-10, but Kazakhstan responded through kicker Jelena Yurova, who dug in from close range to score her visitors’ third try. Fullback Gulim Bakhytbek was converted to stretch the hosts lead by six points.

However, there was still time for late drama in the first half as Kazakhstan winger Liliya Kibisheva was yellow carded and Hong Kong China finally made good on their numerical advantage and scored through Chong Ka Yan.

Ryan missed a difficult conversion which meant the hosts turned 17-16 ahead and this would be the only point scored by Hong Kong China as the opposition were reduced to 14 players.

Kazakhstan scored the next goal after Kibisheva had returned to the pitch as Veronika Stepanuyga crossed into the left corner following a team move.

Less than six minutes later, the hosts had their Fifth try as Yurova crossed the line for the second time.

It gave Kazakhstan an 11-point lead and meant Hong Kong China captain Olson-Thorne’s superb solo try was just a consolation.