East Asia rising?

Last weekend was a triumph for China's women's sevens team. A commanding performance saw them take the Asia Pacific Sevens, four week after winning the first leg of the Asian Championship in similarly impressive style.

It is a remarkable recovery for a team that had a disappointing year in the first World Series and a World Cup that saw them finish with a single win over Brazil - and appeared to culminate in a refereeing dispute in a domestic tournament that led to an international ban for seven players, and the removal of two coaches from the national team.

However, that event seems to have turned the Chinese team around. Within three weeks hadwon in Asia- their first major tournament win since 2011, with a four-point narrow win over Japan.

Now four weeks later they have not only beaten Japan again - by 22-5 in the pool and 29-10 in the final - but also swept past Australia with a 26-12 pool win.

It was not the strongest Australian team - essentially a development team - but it was a similar side to that which won the same tournament in 2012. Last weekend they failed to reach the final, not only losing out to China, but also Japan.

Last year, when Japan beat Australia in a pool game, it was a shock result. This year it was not. Although Australia won a dead rubber pool game (with second half tries from Maddison Elliot, Rachel Crothers and Kate Mullaly), when it came to the semi-final - after an initially nervous start - Japan had too much pace for the young Australian team, coming from behind twice before racing to a 29-14 win, Yume Okuroda staring, aided by captain Chiharu Nakamura.

In the finalboth teams started shakily, and Japan scored first with Rei Yamada touching down in the corner. However China's leading player of the weekend - Yu Xiaomingsoon leveled the game ay 5-5 after she side-stepped two Japanese defenders.

In the second half two more quick tries Sun Shichao and Zhong Rui put China ahead 17-5. Japan briefly rallied with Okuruda and Nakamura combining to close the gap, but a try fromLiu Yang and another from Yu gave China the title.

If this is a new renaissance for East Asian women's rugby, it came too late for the World Cup - and as a result there will be no Asian teams in Dubai this year - though both China and Japan aredue to return to the WSWS as guest teams for the second leg in Atlanta.China target has always been 2016 - next February will show how realistic a target that is.

Asia Pacific Sevens 2013: Shanghai

Results

Cup SemifinalsChina v Samoa 28-10Japan v Australia 29-14

Bowl final:Hong Kong v Papua New Guinea 27-10

Plate final:Australia v Samoa 29-7

Cup final:China v Japan 29-10

Video highlights (semi-finals and final)