Hey, all I usually don't do rugby, but with the England team playing next year's Rugby World Cup hosts at Twickenham I thought I would do the match. After beating South Africa two weeks ago and narrowly losing to New Zealand, last Saturday England hosted the team that created headlines by shocking South Africa in Brighton 34-32 3 years ago with the current England coach Eddie Jones. Japan had autumn that impressed the neutrals, and they faced a tough match against New Zealand but put in a performance that impressed the All Blacks coach in 69-31 defeat in which Japan scored 5 tries. Last time Japan played in Europe, they drew 26-26 to France.
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| Danny Care running in for the opening try. |
Eddie Jones made 11 changes to the team that started the defeat to New Zealand. One of the significant changes was a debut for Joe Cokanasinga from Bath. Both co-captains, Owen Farrel and Dylan Hartley, were on the bench. This made fly-half George Ford captain on his 50th cap for England. Japan made 6 changes to their team after the defeat to the All Blacks. The last time these two teams met was in 1987 at the first World Cup as England defeated Japan 60-7 in the pool stages.
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| Japan's Michael Leitch running in for his try. |
England made a quick start as in 5th minute Elliot Daly gathered a kick from Japan drew the defenders then gave it to the debutant who ran down the wing then fast passes to Jamie George. Danny Care gave England the first try with George Ford scoring the extra points. 10 minutes later Japan took advantage of ill-discipline from England and just scored a penalty kick by Yu Tamura. 4 minutes later, England went a man down as Jamie George was sin-binned for being off his feet. For the time Dylan Hartley has come on to fill in for George's place. Japan made the extra number count with Ryoto Nakamura scoring a try with Tamura converting to make it 10-7 Japan after 22 minutes. 5 minutes later Elliot Daly scored a penalty kick from the halfway line to make it all level at 10-10. Then on the 31st minute Michael Leitch of Japan scored the try as he side-stepped Harry Williams and Tamura missed the conversion to make it 15-10 Japan. Leitch made another big run which nearly gave Japan another try, but he just ran out of room on the wing tries an elaborate pass, but he couldn't connect to a team-mate. That's how it ended at halftime, and the thoughts were Japan deserved the lead.
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| Cokanasagi caps his debut with a try. |
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| Mark Wilson scoring his first international try |
For the first 15 minutes of the second half, it's been close action with Japan conceding penalties to England, and then George Ford kicked a penalty kick to make it 15-13 Japan. Then Mark Wilson scored a try off a breakthrough and Ford converted to give England a lead of 5 points. With 15 minutes to go, England extended the lead to 23-15 after another George Ford penalty. With 10 minutes to go the debutant Cokanasinga scored his first international try and Ford converted to make it 30-15. Hartley extended the lead with a try of his own from a line out; however, it was a tight angle for Ford, and he missed it to make it 35-15.
England fans went away thinking that Japan deserved more from the match after the performance in the first half. For England, they have a week to recover from a near-shock and look forward to welcoming Australia in the final international of the autumn before the six nations. With less than a year to go until the World Cup Japan can look back and say we gave New Zealand and England a run for their money even though they didn't win the matches they know that they have the potential to shock the world again.
I'll be back with more soon.
KRO Mark
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