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Sports / Qatar Sport

Philippines and Thailand to clash in Asia Rugby Sevens Trophy final in Qatar as hosts lose in quarters

Published: 04 Mar 2017 - 05:58 pm | Last Updated: 02 Nov 2021 - 03:33 am
Qatar and Philippines players in an earlier match.

Qatar and Philippines players in an earlier match.

By Armstrong Vaz / The Peninsula

Doha: Philippines and Thailand will clash in the final of the Asia Rugby Sevens Trophy 2017 (ARST) at the Aspire Warm-up Track and Rugby Stadium on Saturday at 7.18pm.

The winner of the event will win a place to participate in the Asia Rugby Sevens Series which will feature three legs and will be played between September 1 to October 14.

In the first semi-final on Saturday evening, Philippines stunned top seeds Singapore 12-10 in a closely fought match to qualify for the title clash while in the other last -four clash, Thailand edged UAE to make it to the final.

For Philippines, Sean Lynch and Vincent Young got their names on the score sheet with five tries each while Daniel Matthews found the target twice for the winners.

Singapore, who were aiming to make it to the Rugby Sevens Series by winning the Qatar tournament, relied heavily on Nicholas Yau Yu Hong, who scored all the ten tries while no other player converted for
Singapore.

In the second semi-final, Thailand defeated UAE 19-17.

Nattapat Prasertwit, Pitpong Plybua and Wuttikorn Kaewkhio scored five times while Warongkorn Khamkoet were successful on four occasions.

 For UAE,  Jeremaia Kilicanasau, Niall Statham and Sean Carey converted five times while Andrew Powell got his name on the scorecard for two conversions.       

Earlier, hosts Qatar went down fighting 24-5 to Thailand in the quarter-finals, while UAE eased past Pakistan 24-10.

Warongkorn Khamkoethad top scored with seven tries for Thailand while Apichai Phichaikamol, Nattapat Prasertwit and Wuttikorn Kaewkhio found the target five times to keep the momentum going for Thailand. Pitpong Plybua scored twice for the winners.

For the hosts, Rakan Al Marri tried to make a fight, but his five tries were not good enough to give his team the decisive advantage in the end result.

In the other last-eight encounters, Singapore made it to the semi-finals defeating India 19-7 to set up a clash with Philippines, who trounced Iran 42-0.

Iran went on to defeat India 17-5 in the play-off matches and set up a clash with Qatar in the 5th and 6th place play-off, while traditional rivals India and Pakistan were left to fight for seven and eight places.

Qatar helped by an excellent show from Maciej Jan Lenartowicz, who top scored with seven tries, trounced Pakistan 21-5.

Luke Ward and Tom Featherstone scored five times, while Boubker Lqebch and Mohamed Sharith Amit two times.

Eleven teams took part in the tournament, the preliminary rounds which saw the teams fighting it out in the four pools, with the top qualifying for the semi-finals.

Jordan, Nepal and Bangladesh failed to get past the pool stages and were left fighting for places 9 to 11.