Panasonic beat Teikyo University to complete double

TOKYO (Jan. 31) – Panasonic Wild Knights added the 53rd All-Japan Championship to the 2015-16 Japan Rugby Top League crown they won last week as they beat Teikyo University 49-15 on Sunday at Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Ground.

The victory – their fifth in the national championship – ensures Robbie Deans’ side finished the season unbeaten and provided a fitting farewell to JP Pietersen, who joins Leicester and Ben McCalman and Hayden Parker, who return to Australia and New Zealand, respectively.

Two tries in the opening five minutes from Tomoki Kitagawa and Kentaro Kodama laid the foundations for the win.

Berrick Barnes converted both five-pointers and then added the extras to Akihito Yamada’s 33rd- minute effort as the Wild Knights went into the break leading 21-3, Teikyo’s points coming from a penalty by Rikiya Matsuda.

Keisuke Uchida and Yasuki Hayashi increased the lead shortly after the break, before Teikyo gave the crowd of 12,721 something to cheer about when Kosuke Horikoshi barged over for a well-deserved try.

Keita Inagaki and Tadasuke Nishihara then crossed the whitewash for Panasonic with Barnes once again adding the extras to make it seven-from-seven.

But it was the students who closed out the scoring when Koki Takeyama dived over in the corner following a scrum five metres out.

“It’s a great way to conclude the year for us,” said Panasonic coach Robbie Deans. “It was a tough game of rugby and very fast, and I would like to acknowledge the effort of Teikyo University.”