One year after the 2003 Rugby World Cup, won by England in Australia, this is a good chance to look at rugby in Asia. Here, afer all, live two-thirds of the worlds population and if the IRB and others have any sense the 2011 Rugby World Cup will be held in Japan. All other ideas of hositing the rugby showcase in South Africa or, heaven forbid, the microscopic non-continental island of New Zealand, must be discarded forthwith. So how long before an Asian team can challenge European or southern hemipsherre teams?

It is difficult to gauge the teams at prsent without real opposition. Clearly there is a discrepancy problem. In the 2004 championships nearly all games involved one team scoring more than twice as many points as their opponents. Japan even trounced South Korea to nil in the final (29-0). Doubly humiliating for Korea, Japan only fielded their 2nd XV as their 1st XV was preparing for a European tour next month. Hong Kong bulldozed Taiwan 29-5.

Pakistan impressed the least. They came close to scoring nothing twice over: losing to Sri Lanka 75-3 and India 56-3. Still, you could not fault them for effort. The Pakistani’s even showed up on the final day for an extra exhibition match with Macau. They lost that too, 35-3.

Singapore smashed the Arabian Gulf 32-6 to win the Cup (five times as many points) and China smashed India 50-15 in the Bowl final (scoring three times as many points). The only two vaguely competitive games involved, curiously, Thailand. They defeated Khazakstan by the narrowest of margins, 37-36, but lost to Singapore 34-41. Make of that what you will.

Being realistic, then, the best this tournament could have been was passable display rugby. But I’m afraid it didn’t really stack up to that either. The physical element was notably lower than Zurich Premiership club rugby, and a country mile behind internationals involving the Six Nations or Tri-Nations teams. Not that players were soft. Far from it. Some are clearly hardening up and a few years from now there could be genuine rugby hard men. But as of today there is a definite tendency amongst all teams, the Top-4 included (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, HK), to glide-and-slide across the pitch when running the ball. The option to build on hard and crunchin crash-and-build set pieces up the middle is limited. Players, in short, prefer looking for holes in the defence rather than making holes.

Not that anyone dislikes running rugby, of course. Properly done and I think it’s fantastic to watch. But in the modern game constant running will never deliver big wins. World class defence is too good these days. So the 2004 tournament tells us that Asian rugby has to watch it doesn't acquire an aversion to crash-and-build.

There was also an odd feeling that some of the Asian teams don’t co-operate too well internally. Cliques within the backs often huddled separately during pauses in games when the moment was right to coordinate as one. There was also a very odd thing that I can’t recall seeing in other internationals: reserves were sometimes excluded from the official line-ups to greet officials. International squads have to work as a cohesive group of 22; there cannot be elitism given to the starting 15.

The tournament highlighted that other concerns with Asian rugby continue. Money is still clearly an influence and it's a sad coincidence that the Top-4 teams are also the wealthiest countries in Asia: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Wealthy Singapore which won the next level down (the Cup) is not far behind.

Thankfully, poor China looked pretty handy in defeating (also poor) India and (also poor) Sri Lanka. Although the Chinese team also suffered from a disconnect between backs and forwards. Probably this arises because several of their stars play for Hong Kong teams as civilians whilst other team-mates are in the PLA. Still, China was, for me, the stand out team of the 2004 tournament. If there was an award for ‘most improved team’ then China should get it.