The 2025 Asia Rugby Championship is the ninth annual rugby union series for Asia Rugby. The tournament features Hong Kong, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates, with Sri Lanka returning for the first time since 2014 following their Championship playoff victory against the fourth placed team from 2024, Malaysia. Malaysia joins the other Asian nations played in the lower-tier division tournaments.
Background and format The format of the series is a single play-off match, followed by a single round-robin where the four remaining teams play each other once. The team finishing on top of the standings at the end of the series is declared the winner. The team finishing at the bottom of the standing are relegated. The competition will begin on 13 June 2025 and will conclude on 5 July 2025.
Hong Kong enter the competition as reigning champions, having won the competition for the fifth time in 2024.
The competition doubles as the final stage of the Asian continental qualifier for the 2027 Men's Rugby World Cup in Australia. The winner of the competition will qualify directly to the World Cup, where it will join Japan who qualified by placing in the 2023 Rugby World Cup, while the runner-up will enter a playoff against Africa 2, the runner-up from the 2025 Africa Cup for the chance to make the 2027 RWC Final Qualification Tournament.
Participants Team Stadium Head coach Captain World Rugby Ranking Home stadium Capacity Location Start End Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground 5,000 Kai Tak, Kowloon Andrew Douglas Joshua Hrstich 23rd 22nd Incheon Namdong Asiad Rugby Field 4,968 Namdong, Incheon Lee Myung-geun Lee Jin-kyu 35th 36th Colombo Racecourse 10,000 Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo Sanath Martis Nigel Ratwatte 39th 46th The Sevens Stadium 15,000 Dubai, Emirate of Dubai colspan=2 50th 40th
Standings 2025 Asia Rugby Championship Champions Pos.TeamMatchesPointsBonus pointsTotal pointsPlayedWonDrawnLostForAgainstDiff.1330019139+1523152320177100–232103310296142–46374300362145–8322Points were awarded to the teams as follows: Win — 4 points; Draw — 2 points; 4 or more tries — 1 point; Loss within 7 points — 1 point; Loss greater than 7 points — 0 points
Fixtures Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Notes
References