Pakistan will take on India in the Division III on May 31 at Kuala Lumpur.HSBC and the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU) Monday announced the competition schedule for the HSBC Asian 5 Nations 2012 (HSBC A5N). This year marks the fifth year of the HSBC A5N, Asia’s Premier International Rugby competition, and the tournament is poised to chart new growth in the game across the region from the elite level to the grassroots in 2012.
Pakistan and India match will be one of the features of the tournament. The stakes are equally high for teams In Division 3 as it will be the region’s first step in qualifying for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Division 3 comprises India, Guam, Indonesia and Pakistan. The tournament will be run concurrently with Div 2 in a festival of rugby to be held in Kuala Lumpur. The winners of each of these competitions will figure in a one-match play-off later in the year to decide who advances to Division 1, thus keeping their Rugby World Cup 2015 dream alive. “Asian rugby fans are once again eagerly anticipating this year’s HSBC A5N as we begin the countdown to Rugby World Cup 2015 qualification,” said an official of the Asian rugby. All eyes, however, will be on the newest member of ARFU – Afghanistan – who will play a series of exhibition sevens games against the UAE’s fully Emirati development side, UAE Shaheen, in their first ARFU-sanctioned competition. The 2012 Asian Five Nations will end with the Division 5 tournament in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which returns to a triangular format in 2012, featuring Laos, Cambodia and Brunei at the tail end of June.
The United Nations estimates that the majority of the world’s youth (nearly 85%) live in developing regions with approximately 60% of these youth (defined as age 15 to 24) living in Asia. The HSBC ARFU Coaching Tour will provide an important resource in developing a fan base for Rugby World Cup 2019 and grooming future generations of elite talent in the world’s most populous region.
