This weekend the focus of qualifying for the 2019 Rugby World Cup shifts to Asia and South America.

On Sunday Malaysia take on the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka face the Philippines in the first round of a tournament that will reward the winner with a place in next year’s Asia Rugby Championship.

With hosts Japan having already qualified for the tournament as Asia’s representative, the route to the finals is very tough for Asia’s second-ranked team with a repechage place as good as it gets.

The winner of this month’s round-robin series in Malaysia will join Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea in the 2018 championship, with the highest–placed team in that competition, excluding Japan, qualifying for a play-off against the winner of the 2018 Oceania Rugby Cup.

The loser of that play-off will be out of contention but the prize for the winner is that precious one-in-four chance to qualify for Japan through the round-robin repechage tournament.

Also in that repechage scrap will be the loser of the play-off between Oceania’s third-ranked team and the second-ranked side from the European qualification process.

In Oceania Fiji, Tonga and Samoa are currently battling it out in the Pacific Tri-Nations Championship.

The next game is on 1 July when Tonga face Samoa in a clash Tonga must win to keep alive their chances of automatic qualification.

If Tonga lose Fiji and Samoa will qualify, with the final game between the Pacific powerhouses on 15 July deciding who will take the Oceania 1 seeding. Tonga face Fiji on 8 July.

If Tonga finish third in the Pacific Tri-Nations their route to Japan will be blocked by the second-ranked team from the European qualifiers, which looks likely to be Spain or Portugal, although other contenders could upset that scenario.

But the loser of that showdown is not out of the running for a place in Japan, with a place in the repechage event their consolation.

In addition to South Africa, one more team from Africa is guaranteed a place in the finals and that will be the winner of Division 1A of the 2018 Rugby Africa Cup.

The winner of this year’s Division 1B will advance to the Africa play-off, where they will play the second-placed side from Division 1A of the 2018 Rugby Africa Cup for a place in the repechage tournament.

The final place in the repechage will come from the Americas qualifying series and this weekend’s games in the South American Rugby Championship "A" will go a long way to deciding who that might be.

The tournament gets underway when Chile host Brazil and Paraguay take on Uruguay on Saturday, and concludes on 27 May when Brazil host Paraguay and Chile travel to Uruguay for the final round of games in the championship.

The winner of the championship is guaranteed a place in the repechage tournament but will first head into a two-leg play-off against either the United States or Canada for the Americas 2 slot in Japan.

The winner of this summer’s two-leg play-off between the US and Canada will qualify for Japan as Americas 1.