TEST RUGBY RESULTS FOR SATURDAY 1 MAY

01.05.2010
Japan 71, Korea 13 in Gyeongsang (WCQ Asia R2; Asia5Nations)
Sweden 17, Croatia 14 in Enkoping (ENC 2B)
Hungary 34, Norway 17 in Esztergom (ENC 3B)
Luxembourg v Israel in Luxembourg (ENC 3C)-no result yet

Briefly
As expected Japan proved too strong for Korea and retains their 'certainty' label for the Asia No.1 spot and a place in the 2011 Rugby World Cup finals. The race is to see who will get the No.2 spot which earns that team a repechage place.

Sweden continued the trend in this competition by defeating the giant-killers Croatia. Croatia upset Netherlands last weekend and now suffered at the hands of Sweden. The final ENC 2B below sees Netherlands promoted to ENC 2A for 2010-12, whilst Latvia is relegated to ENC 3A.

	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	DIFF	PT
NETHERLANDS	8	7	0	1	219	90	129	22
CROATIA	8	6	0	2	161	113	48	20
MALTA	8	4	0	4	132	156	-24	16
SWEDEN	8	2	0	6	146	164	-18	12
LATVIA	8	1	0	7	97	237	-140	10

Hungary too good for Norway in their ENC 3B clash.

	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	DIFF	PT
HUNGARY	7	5	0	2	185	125	60	17
DENMARK	7	4	0	3	137	134	-3	15
SLOVENIA	6	4	0	2	113	96	17	14
NORWAY	7	3	0	4	98	114	-16	13
AUSTRIA	7	1	0	4	67	130	-63	9

I'm not even going to try and work this out so I'm leaving it to a far better student of the rules of competition 'Quentin' at http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/forum2007/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3450 ' That puts Hungary top of 3B in another closely contested division. Next up is the crucial Denmark - Slovenia game, which is 2nd vs 3rd. Hungary have the 7 - 6 advantage over Slovenia by tries scored in the head-to-head games which is tied at 43 points each. So if Slovenia win they go 2nd with possibility of 20 points if they also beat Norway. If Denmark win and Austria beat Hungary they also have inferior head2head with Hungary and will both have 18 points. So if Hungary win in Austria and reach 20 points they will win the division regardless'.

That leaves the Israel-Luxembourg result to come.