The tournament to decide final qualifier for the World Cup kicks off tomorrow (at around breakfast our time). The Asian qualification tournament will be a straight knockout, with the semi-finals on Wednesday and the final on Friday.
In practice the eventual winner is unlikely to be a serious contender next September, but it shoudl still be an interesting event. Hosts Singapore kick the tournament off against Japan at 8am our time (4pm local time) and deserve to do well, if only because of their astonishing enthusiasm and detailed preparations - none of the other sides have worked quite as hard as Singapore have, with three warm-up internationals in the past month. This is the first time they have entered the World Cup - Singapore did not even have a women's team in 2006.
Japan, on the other hand, have been playing since the early days of women's rugby - but their preparations have been significantly less impressive and, while they start as favourites, there is a real chance of an upset - especially if Singapore can get an early score.
The second semi final between Kazakhstan and Hong Kong kicks off at 10am. Kazakhstan are clear favourites for both this game, and the competition as a whole (they have never lost to another Asian team) - but they have played only four internationals since 2006 so who knows how prepared they will be?
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