The Japan U17 girls sevens side proved just as successful as their boys as they overcame China in the final of the Asia Rugby U17 Girls Sevens 2017 in Dubai with a 17-7 victory over China.
The triumph sees the Japan girls team book their place in the Youth Olympic Games 2018 in Buenos Aires.
In a relatively tight affair, the final saw China strike early with a try to Weiyan Wang which was converted by Wenyan Zheng to give China an early 7-0 lead. However, Japan dominated possession and struck back through the silky run of Matsuda to close the gap to 5-7 leading into half time.
A try to Kato early in the second half which was duly converted by the tournament’s leading point sorer, Nishimura was followed up by the final try to Tsukui as Japan marched on to a 17-7 win over China.
In other highlights of the tournament, India, who had a guest coach in the form of USA Sevens coach, Mike Friday advising them, played some magnificent free-flowing rugby as they scored the biggest upset of the tournament knocking out last years’ champions Hong Kong in the quarter-final, of Malaysia, 10-5, a 30-0 victory over Malaysia
1ST 2Japan
2ND China
3RDKazakhstan
India