Japan Made to Work Hard for Win
COIMBRA, Portugal (Nov. 13) – Japan won their first test match since Rugby World Cup 2019 on Saturday as they beat Portugal 38-25 at Estádio Municipal Cidade de Coimbra.
Playing just their fifth game since they hosted rugby’s flagship tournament, the Brave Blossoms were made to work hard for the win in the first ever meeting between the two nations.
“Obviously we are lacking game time together and we have a lot of new players,” said head coach Jamie Joseph.
“But I thought the Portugal side was very good today…and I take my hat off to the Portuguese players and coaching staff. They were very tough didn’t give it away and learnt along the way and identified areas of our defense that they attacked.”
Joseph said his side’s discipline did not help.
“We prepared very well this week. We were a team under pressure following a poor performance against Ireland. We really wanted to play well today and I thought we set the game up for the second half but discipline let our performance down.”
“It’s an area we need to get better,” he said. “But when we had control of the game I thought we played some really good rugby.”
The inability to adapt to the interpretations of referee Andrew Brace was also picked up on by the leadership group.
“We had two yellow cards and we were fighting with 14 people for 20 minutes, and that was a tough in a game like this,” said Kazuki Himeno, who scored one of Japan’s four tries.
“So we have to improve the discipline. The one plus was that we were able to win in the end and share the joy of winning with the team.”
Captain Ryota Nakamura agreed saying “The content of the game was difficult because we couldn’t play at our pace due to the penalties,” while Michael Leitch pointed out that “the number of penalties was high and I think there were some things that could be prevented.”
Japan started well when Siosaisa Fifita benefited from a clever chip ahead from Rikiya Matsuda and some good support work from Shogo Nakano and Ryohei Yamanaka to go over in the corner in the fourth minute.
But they were never able to really exert their control on the game.
A penalty from Samuel Marques closed the gap before some quick thinking from the same player following a penalty against Japan caught the Brave Blossoms napping and allowed Jose Lima to gallop over and give the hosts the lead.
Three penalties from Matsuda and one from Marques saw Japan hold a three-point before Nakano marked his debut with a well taken try just before the break to make it 21-11 as the teams turned around.
The second half started with Portugal’s pack constructing a well-worked driving maul to power Mike Tadjer over as the hosts made their most of their numerical advantage following a yellow card to Leitch.
Japan hit back though when a line-out steal from Jack Cornelsen and a good run by Kosuke Horikoshi was finished off by Himeno.
But the lead was once again cut by the Portuguese pack with Joao Granate eventually diving over the chalk to make it a 28-25 game with 20 minutes remaining.
That was as close as the hosts would get though as Matsuda’s trusted right boot added a further five points as he banged over a penalty and then added the extras to Yamanaka’s last-minute intercept try.
With Japan set to take on Scotland next week at Murrayfield, Joseph pointed out that despite the indiscipline issues, there were positives to take from the game.
“I thought Shogo (Nakano) played very well and that’s always a good sign for the future of Japanese rugby. He got limited opportunities with ball in hand. But he scored a good try, broke the line and offloaded. So that part of the game for him was very strong.”