Japan all but secured yet another Asia Rugby Championship in Incheon on Saturday with a 60-3 win over Korea.
The Brave Blossoms’ third consecutive bonus-point win of this year's competition leaves them needing just one point from next week’s game in Tokyo against Hong Kong to wrap up the title.
With a strong breeze behind him, Korean fly-half Jimyeong Oh kicked a penalty from halfway to hand the home side a 3-0 lead. However, that was as good as it got for the hosts who went on to ship 10 tries split evenly between the halves.
Hooker Atsushi Sakate and captain Keisuke Uchida were the first to cross the whitewash before Korea’s task was made even more difficult when they lost Youn Kwon-Woo to the sin-bin.
A penalty try and a brace from Ryohei Yamanaka saw Japan pull away and take a 29-3 lead into half-time.
It was all Japan after the restart and their dominance was rewarded when Sakate scored his second try nine minutes into the second half.
Korea found themselves down to 14 again when Kim Hyun-Soo was yellow-carded after 53 minutes, and, as in the first half, Korea conceded 12 points while they had the numerical disadvantage, winger Kentaro Kodama and lock Naohiro Kotaki (main picture) dotting down as Japan opened up a 48-3 lead with a quarter of the match to play.
Late tries from Takuhei Yasuda and Hajime Yamashita put further gloss on a win that has no effect on the Brave Blossoms’ position of 10th in the World Rugby Rankings given that they started the weekend ranked 19 places higher than Korea and were expected to win well.
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There were significant changes though to the rankings of those nations competing in the Asia Rugby Championship Division 2, which kicked off the region’s Rugby World Cup 2019 qualification process and concluded with a title win for the United Arab Emirates.
As a result of two big wins in the space of three days in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, newly-crowned champions UAE surge 10 places up the rankings to 73rd. Thailand dropped five places over the course of the competition and are now 80th, while Guam are one place worse off than when they started the week in 75th. Back-to-back defeats on home soil cost Uzbekistan 2.66 rankings points and seven places in the rankings. They are now ranked 94th.
Having despatched host nation Uzbekistan 65-13 earlier in the week, on Saturday the United Arab Emirates ran in 10 tries for an equally emphatic 70-18 win over Thailand.
A perfect kicking display from centre Charlie Sargent yielded 20 points for him personally and ensured that the UAE were never really in danger of losing the game. That said, Thailand were still in the hunt until quite deep into the second half thanks to tries from Adithep Keatpattanachai and Chinnoiwont Hirunchai and a generally stubborn performance, but then the floodgates opened and a brace each for wing Ryno Fourie, fly-half Matthew Hutchings and twinkle-toed full-back Imad Reyal were the highlights.
The first match of the day was a much tighter affair with Guam edging Uzbekistan 23-22.