Dubai: The UAE are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, this weekend for round two of the three-stage Asian Rugby Football Union’s (ARFU) Asian Sevens Series.

Roelof Kotze’s side will be looking for improvements from the opening round in Hong Kong, last month, where they finished 12th in the 12-team format.

In Hong Kong, the all-Emirati side lost their opening group games against Malaysia 40-0 and Japan 51-0, before a 29-0 defeat to Taipei in the bowl semi-final, and a 40-5 loss to Kazakhstan in the 11th place play-off. Hareb Al Azri scored the UAE’s only try, after his side had conceded a demoralising 160 points.

The UAE have been drawn in Group D in Kuala Lumpur, where they will play Malaysia and South Korea at the Petaling Jaya Stadium from 8.36am and 11.06am (UAE time) on Saturday, before Sunday’s knockouts.

“We’ve got a bit of work to do after what we saw in Hong Kong,” said Kotze, who is missing players through national service. “We’ve identified some areas of our game where we’re just not there and we’ve got to try and strengthen ourselves in those areas.

“Obviously, in the short turnaround time we have, we cannot fix everything. But we’ve done some on-field and video work with the guys to explain it fully to them.

“We’ve spent some time with that and we’ve set ourselves a goal of improving our defence and our handling. We were very poor in both those areas. Those are fairly easy areas to fix with a little application, so hopefully we’ll see the results of that come this weekend.”

The third and final round of the series is in Beijing, China, from October 18-19.

The UAE were planning to use the first two stages of the Asian Sevens Series as preparation for the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, from September 19 to October 4.

But, the UAE National Olympic Committee have decided not to include rugby in their list of events. Kotze’s side will now focus on Olympic pre-qualifiers in Dubai on October 31 and India on November 30, in order to qualify for next year’s final-12 decider.

But only one team from that 12 — which includes powerhouses Japan and South Korea — will qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.