Japan race to France

Big win over Korea

Japan beat Korea 54-0 in Hong Kong on Saturday afternoon to book their place in the 2007 World Cup in France.

Beaten Korea now play Tonga in a répechage match, the winner also qualifying for France.  It is highly unlikely that Korea will come close to winning that one.

Japan, who have only ever won one match at the World Cup now slot into Pool B along with Australia, Wales, Fiji, and Canada.

Japan led 28-0 at half-time after tries by Mitsugu Yamamoto, Go Aruga, Luatangi Samurai Vatuvei and Phil O'Reilly all converted by Aruga.

In the second half rugby's greatest scorer of Test tries ever, Daisuke Ohata, scored a hat-trick of tries to extend his record to 69 tries, four of them scored in this tournament.  Right at the end Hirotoki Onozawa scored Japan's last try.  Young Aruga converted three of them.

Afterwards incoming coach John Kirwan said:  "I am very pleased for the boys and Japan.  There was lot of pressure on us before the game but we can now think about the World Cup.  The players did their nation proud."

Scorers:

For Japan:
Tries:  Yamamoto, Aruga, Vatuvei, O'Reilly,  Ohata 3, Onozawa
Cons:  Aruga 7

Teams:

Japan:  15 Go Aruga, 14 Daisuke Ohata (captain), 13 Hideyui Yoshida, 12 Shotaro Onishi, 11 Hirotoki Onozawa, 10 Keisuke Sawaki, 9 Mamoru Ito, 8 Takuro Miuchi, 7 Philip O’Reilly, 6 Hajime Kiso, 5 Luatangi Samurai Vatuvei, 4 Hitoshi Ono, 3 Ryo Yamamura, 2 Mitsugu Yamamoto, 1 Tatsukichi Nishiura
Replacements:  16 Yuji Matsubara, 17 Yuichi Hisadomi, 18 Takashi Akatsuka, 19 Takashi Kikutani, 20 Takashi Tsuji, 21 Kenji Shomen, 22 Ryota Asano

Korea:  15 Jae Young Chae, 14 Chul Woong Kwak, 13 Jong Su Kim, 12 Sung Soo Kim, 11 In Sou Cho, 10 Tae Il Yoon, 9 Myung Geun Lee, 8 Kwang Moon Lee, 7 Young Nam You, 6 Jeong Min Kim, 5 Kwon Woo Youn, 4 Young Nam Kim, 3 Tae Hyung Kim, 2 Soon Kil Eom, 1 Young Keun Kim
Replacements:  16 Sung Un Jung, 17 Tae Hyung Kim, 18 Seon Kyu Park, 19 Song Gun Jung, 20 Young Hun Yang, 21 Min Hyung Yoo, 22 Keun Hyun Kim

Referee:  Chris Pollock (New Zealand)
Touch judges:  James Leckie, George Ayoub (both Australia)
Assessor:  Brendan McCormick (Australia)