Dubai: The target of two wins from four remains for the UAE in rugby's Asian Five Nations Top Five this Saturday, despite their survival having been almost certainly sealed with victory over Kazakhstan.
The UAE travels to South Korea for their last match of the campaign, following an emphatic 46-31 victory at home to Kazakhstan a fortnight ago.
Having lost their opening two games 85-10 to Hong Kong and 106-3 to Japan the UAE stands on six points with winless Kazakhstan on one.
To overtake second from bottom UAE the Kazakh's would need to beat Hong Kong away on Saturday by scoring four or more tries - a mission many believe impossible.
Despite this assurance UAE coach Duncan Hall isn't sitting too comfortably. Hall said: "We're still playing toward the goal of winning two out of four and we're only half way towards that target. If we do that relegation wont become an issue.
"The Kazakhstan match proved we have an attacking capacity now we've just got to defend. We don't have pace and Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea all do, so we need to improve upon our pace on the outside."
Hall added: "We'll be working very hard for the win and will have to defend well against a Korean team still focused on finishing second. They beat Hong Kong 21-19 in week two so for us to beat Korea we would need to play far better than we've ever played - that's the challenge."
Speaking of Kazakhstan's plight, Hall said: "Their opponents Hong Kong have their backs against the wall. Hong Kong is playing at home with high expectations in that part of the world [after the Korea loss] and they'll be battling for second also. Kazakhstan has a massive hurdle to overcome but that's their problem, we'll only be concerned on winning our match.
"The campaign so far has been satisfactory, but if we can win this last game we'd be very happy. We've been up against teams that are ranked 12th, and in the late twenties of the world ranking. We're not ranked so everyone has been above us."
