The 2018 Asia Rugby Championship was the fourth annual

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 ...

series for the top-level

Asia Rugby Asia Rugby, formerly the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU), is the governing body of rugby union in Asia under the authority of World Rugby. Founded in 1968 by eight charter nations, the Union today has 36 member unions in countries across Asia, ...

nations. 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 ...

in 2018 formed part of the World Cup qualifying process and, as such, did not include Japan who had already qualified as the

2019 Rugby World Cup The 2019 Rugby World Cup was the ninth edition of the Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's rugby union teams. It was hosted in Japan from 20 September to 2 November in 12 venues all across the country. The opening match ...

host.

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

were joined by

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 ...

, promoted from Division 1, to compete in the 2018 series. Other Asian nations played in the lower division tournaments. The format of the tri-nations series is a double round-robin where the three teams play each other twice on a home and away basis. The team finishing on top of the standings at the end of the series is declared the winner. The 2018 series winner

advanced to a cross-regional play-off series against Oceania 4,

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, to earn a berth in the repechage tournament.

Teams

The teams involved, with their world rankings prior to the 2018 tournament in brackets:

Standings

Fixtures

''Source'': asiarugby.com

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asian 2018 in Asian rugby union 2018 rugby union tournaments for national teams

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

International rugby union competitions hosted by Hong Kong International rugby union competitions hosted by South Korea International rugby union competitions hosted by Malaysia

Asia Rugby Championships Asia Rugby Championships Asia Rugby Championships