Japan Team Announced to Play New Zealand at U20 World Championships

Japan U20 Coach Rob Penney has today announced his team to take on New Zealand in Japan’s third and final pool match at the 2023 World Rugby U20 Championships in South Africa. Kicking off at 16:00 South African local time (23:00 JST) on Tuesday, 4 July, the fixture will be Japan’s last opportunity to record a win at the tournament, after having fallen to both France and Wales in their two previous matches.

New Zealand come into the fixture with mixed form following their 35-14 defeat to France, the two-time reigning U20 World Champions and a one-point, 26-27 win against Wales in their first match. With New Zealand still looking to qualify for the finals and Japan looking to finish the tournament on a positive note, Tuesday’s match is sure to be a hard-fought affair.

Penney has made wholesale changes to the side that went down 41-19 against Wales last Thursday, with 12 changes to the starting fifteen. Inside-centre, Kengo Nonaka who missed the Wales match, comes back into the team as Captain in place of the suspended Yoshiki Omachi, who will sit out the match following his red card against the Welsh.

Number-eight Taison Mogami is the only forward to retain his place in the run-on side, with the front-row seeing a direct, like-for-like switch with the bench from the Wales match. At number-ten, Taishin Oshima moves from the bench into the starting playmaker position, replacing Kanjiro Naramoto who moves to the reserves bench.

TEAM LIST

No. Name
1 Tomoki YUMBE
2 Takashi OMOTO
3 Kosuke SUGIURA
4 Ryotaro NOSE
5 Kantaro TAJIMA
6 Tenta KOBAYASHI
7 Toki TOSHIKAWA
8 Taison MOGAMI
9 Yutaro TAKAHASHI
10 Taishin OHSHIMA
11 Kosho MUTO
12 Kengo NONAKA
13 Shota TAIRA
14 Ryohei IMANO
15 Yoshitaka YAZAKI
16 Kouta NAGASHIMA
17 Sena HWANG
18 Riku TOMITA
19 Bunsuke KURITA
20 Keito HAYASHI
21 Genki IKUTA
22 Kanjiro NARAMOTO
23 Renji OIKE