U20 Japan Start Championship with a Loss
Japan and New Zealand met for the first time in the U20 Championship with the defending champions running in eleven unanswered tries on their way to an emphatic 67-0 win to get their campaign underway. A lot of the tries were scored out wide with right wing Jamie Spowat scoring a hat-trick while left wing Leicester Faingaanuku crossed for a brace.
After the match, New Zealand captain Tom Christie said, “We are really happy with how we performed, it was an amazing game to have up first because Japan really challenged us. Maybe the score does not reflect that but they competed really hard at the breakdown and their maul was hard to stop.”
Japan captain Hisanobu Okayama commented, “Unfortunately we lost the game to New Zealand but we still have the games against Australia and Wales. We have got a lot of room to improve so we are going to work on that and move towards the next games.”
U20 New Zealand 67 d U20 Japan 0
Date: Wednesday, 30 May 2018
Venue: Stade d’Honneur, Narbonne
Kick-off: 21.00 (04.00 +1 JST)
Halftime: U20 New Zealand 38 – U20 Japan 0
U20 New Zealand 67 – Tries: Jamie Spowat 3, Leicester Faingaanuku 2, Tom Christie, John Akauola-Laula, Will Tucker, Bailyn Sullivan, Vilimoni Koroi and Xavier Roe; Conversions: Kaleb Trask 6 d
U20 Japan 0.
U20 New Zealand: 1- Xavier Numia, 2- Flynn Thomas, 3- Tevita Mafile’o, 4- John Akauola-Laula, 5- Will Tucker, 6- Tom Florence, 7- Tom Christie (c), 8- Hoskins Sotutu, 9- Xavier Roe, 10- Kaleb Trask, 11- Leicester Faingaanuku, 12- Billy Proctor, 13- Bailyn Sullivan, 14- Jamie Spowat and 15- Vilimoni Koroi. Reserves: 16- Ricky Jackson, 17- Sione Asi, 18- Rob Cobb, 19- Waimana Riedlinger-Kapa, 20- Will Tremain, 21- Jay Renton, 22- Harry Plummer and 23- Scott Gregory. Coach: Craig Philpott.
U20 Japan: 1- Yusuke Yamada, 2- Miyu Arai, 3- Gakuto Ishida, 4- Kanji Shimokawa, 5- Ryuga Hashimoto, 6- Kai Yamamoto, 7- Hisanobu Okayama (c), 8- Asipeli Moala, 9- Shinobu Fujiwara, 10- Hiroto Mamada, 11- Koga Neduka, 12- Yuto Mori, 13- Siosaia Fifita, 14- Halatoa Vailea and 15- Kyohei Yamasawa. Reserves: 16- Yuichiro Taniguchi, 17- Ryunosuke Momoji, 18- Rento Tsukayama, 19- Kaito Aibe, 20- Shota Fukui, 21- Atora Hondo, 22- Yu Saruta and 23- Yoshiyuki Koga. Coach: Satoru Endo.