Scrum of the Earth /

New Zeland Maori and Australia A occupy the top two spots in the Pacific Nations Cup, highlighting the strength in depth of the southern hemisphere giants with World Cup veterans, Morgan Turinui, Piri Weepu and Mark Gerrard in their squads.

Australia A kicked off by scoring six tries against a stubborn Japanese side, including a brace for Peter Kimlin  while Mark Gerrard claimed a 17 point haul in the win. Captain Morgan Turinui has impressed and made it two tries in two as the strong second string Wallabies held out in wet and sticky conditions against a strong Samoan side in Apia.

Fiji missed out on a first victory over Maori since 1951 after Jason Eaton's second half try sealed an edgy victory over a plucky South Sea Islanders. Sireli Naqelevuki has sensational considering the dire conditions, but the Fijians class showed by trouncing Samoa with debutant Timoci Nagusa scored two tries.

NZ Maori outmuscled a Tongan tank, who are starring down the barrel of a winless tournament. Piri Weepu's late try ended any hopes of an upset, while Tonga were then stunned by Japan, who are clearly making giant strides under John Kirwan.

James Arlidge's boot and four excellent tries, including one each for Hirotoki Onozawa and Takashi Kikutani saw the Cherry Blossoms score their first victory of the tournament.

This weekend sees Asia step up it's efforts to expand the game of Rugby on the continent, with the start of the Asian Five Nations tournament. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, a side from the Gulf and the mighty Kazakhstan will take part in the inaugural tournament, with the organisers hoping that it will be the start of a rugby resurgence in Asia.

With Japan the highest ranked side at 18th in the world, and the only side from Asia to qualify for last year's World Cup where they exited at the group stages, don't expect the standard to be reaching world class just yet. When we say yet, we mean probably never.

But Japan coach, All Black great John Kirwan, isn't taking his side to sit and wait for their opposition to catch up to their level.

“At the Asian Five Nations, we will not only aim to win but also aim to win overwhelmingly. The whole world is paying attention to Japanese rugby now,” he said, before trying to persuade everyone to pay attention to Japanese rugby.

The round-robin format will begin this weekend, with Japan playing South Korea and Hong Kong taking on the Gulf, then Test matches will be played on five consecutive weekends.