The 2008 Asian Five Nations, known as the 2008 HSBC Asian 5 Nations due to its sponsorship by

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc ( zh, t_hk=滙豐; initialism from its founding member The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business li ...

, was the inaugural series of the newly formatted Asian

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

tournament, the Asian Five Nations. It is the flagship competition devised by the

International Rugby Board World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

to develop the sport in the Asian region. Ten matches were played over five weekends from 26 April to 24 May, with Japan winning all four of their games to become the first Asian Five Nations champions on 18 May 2008. Scoring system: 5 points for a win, three for a draw, one bonus point for being within seven points of the winning team, and one for four tries.

Teams

The teams involved, with their world rankings pre tournament, were: * (43) * (30) * (18) * (33) * (23)

Final table

*Bottom team, Arabian Gulf, are relegated to Division One for 2009 edition.

Fixtures

Report on JRFU website

References

External links

Japan Rugby Football Union
on itsrugby.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:rugby union

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

Five Nations Five Nations

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

2008 in Hong Kong sport 2008 in South Korean sport 2008 in Kazakhstani sport