The round robin stage has been completed here in Tokyo, Japan for the 2023 World Wheelchair Rugby Asia Oceania Championships.
After 3 days of competition, it is the hosts, Japan, who will go into the Gold medal match as favourites having gone undefeated throughout the tournament. Lead by their front players Daisuke Ikezaki and Yukinobu Ike, they will be looking to send off head coach Kevin Orr with a tournament win. Orr, who lives in the USA and has been commuting in his time as Japan’s coach, announced the day before the start of the tournament that he would be stepping down from the role.
Australia have played well all tournament and have lead their matches against Japan for at least half of each of them but have made costly errors towards the end of their clashes that has proved costly. They will be pleased that they have had some close games against New Zealand to run different line ups.
New Zealand have had some good performances at times, but have been let down also by errors at critical times. Given they pushed Australia and Japan at times in all their matches against these opponents, there is certainly some positives for the Kiwis.
Korea came into the tournament in a rebuilding phase, and had an unfortunate disruption just prior to the tournament, which meant that they didn’t have their ideal team look they had wanted. After consulting with WWR and JWRF, the decision was made by the Koreans to forfeit their second matches against the other 3 teams. Instead, exhibition matches were played under WWR rules, including the official result of these matches being 1-0 to Korea’s opposition. They will however, officially compete for bronze tomorrow against New Zealand. None of the forfeited matches determined any placings.
Matches on the final day of competition (times are in Japanese Standard Time) –
Bronze medal match 12:15pm New Zealand vs Korea
Live stream links
English commentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dplst1RG5xw
Japanese commentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj_VreF9YyY
Gold medal match 2:15pm Japan vs Korea
English commentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eDRhJNSNCg
Japanese commentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeHgZ649jdA
