The 2016 Asia Rugby Championship division tournaments refers to the divisions played within the annual international

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

tournament for the Asian region. The

Asia Rugby Championship The Asia Rugby Championship, or ARC, is an annual rugby union competition held amongst national rugby sides within the Asia Rugby region. The competition was originally known as the Asian Rugby Football Tournament when founded in 1969, and was call ...

(ARC) replaced the Asian Five Nations tournament in 2015. The main tournament is now contested by the top three teams in Asia. The other national teams in Asia compete in three divisions.

Teams

The teams involved in the division tournaments, with their world rankings prior to the competition in brackets: Division 1 * (38) * (54) * (58) * (59) Division 2 * (73) * (75) * (83) * (89)

Division 3

East * (98) * (NA) West * (NA) * (NA) * UAE Shaheen (NA) West-Central * (NA) * (NA) * (NA)

Notes

Singapore was promoted to Division 1 prior to the scheduled start of competition to replace Kazakhstan, who withdrew from the tournament. Thailand was promoted to Division 2 prior to the scheduled start of competition to replace the Singapore team promoted to Division 1. Syria withdrew from Division 3 West prior to the scheduled start of competition and was replaced by the United Arab Emirates development side, the Shaheen. Brunei and China withdrew from Division 3 East shortly before the competition and the division was reduced to a single match

Division 1

The Division 1 tournament was held in

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Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. All times are

Malaysia Time Malaysian Standard Time (MST; ms, Waktu Piawai Malaysia, WPM) or Malaysian Time (MYT) is the standard time used in Malaysia. It is 8 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The local mean time in Kuala Lumpur was originally GMT+06:46:4 ...

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) Malaysia won the Division 1 tournament giving them a promotion chance by playing a match against the third placers of the main tournament in a playoff dubbed as the Top 3 challenge. Malaysia did not choose to participate and will remain in Division 1 in the next edition.

Table

Fixtures

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Division 2

The Division 2 tournament was held in

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...

, Uzbekistan. All times are

Uzbekistan Time Uzbekistan time is the standard time in Uzbekistan; it is 5 hours ahead of UTC, UTC+05:00. The standard time uses no daylight saving time, though there has been constant debate whether to adopt it in order to increase leisure time. After the breaku ...

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UTC+5 UTC+05:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +05:00. This time is used in: As standard time (Northern Hemisphere winter) ''Principal cities: Islamabad, Karachi'' South Asia *Pakistan - Time in Pakistan As standard time (year-ro ...

)

Fixtures

Semi-finals

3rd-place final

Final

Division 3 West

The Division 3 West tournament will be held in

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, Jordan. All times are

Arabia Standard Time UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours later than the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, a time with this offset would be wri ...

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). Syria were originally scheduled to compete, but withdrew early in the year. They were replaced by the UAE's developmental side, the Shaheen.

Table

Fixtures

Division 3 West-Central

The Division 3 West-Central tournament will be held in

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, Qatar. All times are

(

Table

Fixtures

Division 3 East

The Division 3 East tournament will be held at Queen Sirikit Stadium in Khlong Luang District,

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. All times are

Indochina Time UTC+07:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +07:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as . It is 7 hours ahead of UTC, meaning that when the time in UTC areas is midnight (00:00), the time in UTC+07:00 areas would ...

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). With the withdrawal of Brunei and China, Division III East became a one-off final between Laos and Indonesia

Fixtures

Final

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asian

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

2016 in Asian rugby union 2016 rugby union tournaments for national teams