Kazakhstan win Promotion and keep their dream alive of a 7th World Cup appearance

Kazakhstan wins the second leg of two-match series 15-0 And the win the series by aggregate 10 points after overcoming 5 point deficit from 1st leg.

China came into the Match with a five-point lead having beaten Kazakhstan 13-8 in the first leg of the two-legged play-off doubling up as a Women’s Rugby World Cup 2021 qualifier.

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On a significantly cooler afternoon than Wednesday’s 1st test and with Kazakhstan open side flanker, Liliiya Kibisheva particularly prominent with her ball carrying and offloading Kazakhstan take a slender 7-0 lead into half time through a try by centre Alina Askerova in the 25th minute, converted by veteran full back, Aigerym Daurembayeva.

China’s scrum-half, Xing Han yellow carded 6 mins into 2nd half

China fly half Ming Chen reverted to a tactical kicking game in the 2nd half to gain territorial dominance but missed a drop goal in front of the posts on 12 mins which would have regained he aggregate points lead by 1 point.

Kazakhstan scrum-half, Daiana Kazibekova then also yellow-carded on 13th min for the same offence not being 10m at quick penalty kick.

Daurembayeva extended the lead on 62nd minute to 10-0 with a sweetly struck 25m penalty Kick to extend Kazakhstan’s aggregate lead to 5 points.

China having to play catch up saw them repeatedly try to run the ball from deep but they eventually succumbed to Kazakhstan pressure with an unconverted try on 67th minute by Kaz wing Yekaterina Kamenkova to make the match score 15-0 And Kazakhstan aggregate lead to 10 points.

Kazakhstan’s 3 days acclimatisation and longer-term experience of senior Women’s 15s (6 WRWCs) saw them able to wrestle their way out of Wednesday’s 5 point deficit and end the game comfortably dominant.

But fledgeling China can take confidence that they are competitive at this level and their performance over the 2 tests may have earned them the right to join Kazakhstan in the 2020 Asia Rugby top-flight Women’s Championship in March 2020 for another crack at 2021 WRWC qualification.

Kazakhstan will join Japan and Hong Kong in next year’s Asia Rugby Women’s Championship 2020 the winner of that tournament will guarantee a place at the 2021 Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand

The final team to qualify for WRWC 2021 will be decided via the new Repechage tournament, which will take place in 2020.

The tournament will comprise of the second-placed teams in the Asia, Europe and Oceania regional tournaments and the winner of the play-off between South America and second-placed team from the Africa regional qualifier.

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2021 is the ninth edition of the tournament and the first to be held in the Southern Hemisphere after New Zealand were awarded hosting rights by World Rugby in November of last year.

Kazakhstan XV

1: Kundyzay BAKTYBAYEVA, 2: Anna RAKOVA, 3: Natalya KAMENDROVSKAYA, 4: Aruzhan KARIYEVA, 5: Lyudmila IVANOVA, 6: Liliya KIBISHEVA, 7: Mariya GRISHINA, 8: Symbat ZHAMANKULOVA, 9: Daiana KAZIBEKOVA, 10: Balzhan KOISHHYBAYEVA ( C ), 11: Yekaterina KAMENKOVA, 12: Alina ASKEROVA, 13: Vlada ODNOLETOK, 14: Akzhan RAKHIMBERGENOVA, 15: Aigerym DAUREMBAYEVA, 16: Kuralay TURALYKOVA, 17: Diana ABISHEVA, 18: Viktoriya REVYAKINA, 19: Nargiza BEKEZHANOVAMariya GRISHINA, 20: Darya TKACHYOVA, 21: Yeva BEKKER, 22: Vera BOICHENKO

China XV

1: Xin yue ZHOU, 2: Lu xue WANG, 3: Hui hui ZHANG, 4: Ming MA, 5: Xue WANG, 6: Xin WANG, 7: Wan ting ZHANG, 8: Yuan yuan LU ( C ), 9: Xing HAN, 10: Xiao dan MA, 11: Yu qian CHEN, 12: Yan ZHOU, 13: Xiao WANG, 14: Wei yan WANG, 15: Zheng ZHOU, 16: Si PENG, 17: Kang ping SUN, 18: Hong ting RUAN, 19: Shuang Shuang Wang, 20: Fei WANG, 21: Ming CHEN, 22: Jing DAI, 23: Yue yue WANG