Rugby World Cup kicked off in Tokyo

After a busy summer in which England's cricket team were dominating the headlines with their World Cup and Ashes, and England's women's football team got to the semi-final of the Women's World Cup, now its the turn of the Rugby squad to take the headlines. Though they don't play until Sunday morning in the Sapporo Dome,  against Tonga. That completes a breakfast of rugby after Ireland face Scotland and Wales take on Georgia on Monday. It's the first-ever Rugby World Cup tournament in Asia.

Japan team getting their names announced

Japan is hosting the first match against Russia and is looking to build on their shocking victory of South Africa in 2015. Meanwhile, Russia only qualified after Spain, Belgium and Romania were disqualified after fielding ineligible players during their qualification matches. Russia's players only play in the Russian league while two of them play outside the country in Valery Mozov who plays for Sale in the Premiership and Andrei Ostrikov who plays for Grenoble in France. The referee for the match was Nigel Owens.

Kirill Golonitsky (middle front) with the first try of the tournament

After a fumble on the kickoff, Russia was looking on Japan's try-line. Russia had a chance for points on a penalty kick but decided to go for a lineout. It went wrong as they knocked the ball forward then when Japan tried to kick the ball out of their try area, it was knocked down by the Russians but ran out behind the backline. Then Russia on a punt down made  Japan pay on another fumble as Kirill Golonitsky scored the first try of the world cup. This made Russia 7-0 up after 5 minutes after a good conversion by Yury Kushnarev.

Japan was looking to equalise, but the Golonitsky defended well to keep the ball in play. Russia made their first mistake by going offside, and Japan went for a lineout. Japan put pressure and found a gap in Russia's left-wing, which was converted into a try by Japan's Kotaro Matsushima. The conversion went wide left, leaving it 7-5 Russia after 11 minutes. Ten minutes later Japan was attacking however after a high tackle and several knock-ons Russia got a scrum and went out after clever use of a ruck and nearly scored their second try. One problem for Japan is that they haven't been defending through phases and missing every high kick opportunity. Russia's scrum-half Vasiliy Doroveef went off for a concussion check replaced by Dmitry Perov.  Japan had a lucky bounce off a lineout, and it paid off with a try which was overturned after Matsushima lost control of the ball when he went down.

Koro Matsushima landing for the try.

Then after 13 phases of play and on the verge of halftime, Matsushima scored his second try. Though it looked like the ball went forward on the replays. It finished 12-7 Japan at halftime. Japan had a penalty kick making it 15-7,  4 minutes into the second half. Then 2 minutes later  Japan got the first try of the second half by Pieter Labuschange (no relation to the Australian cricketer) as he stole the ball from the Russians and ran in unopposed however the conversion sailed wide left making it 20-7. Japan made two changes at prop with Iseili Nakajima and Koo Ji-won coming on for Keita Inagaki and Asaeli Ai Valu. Russia had a penalty kick which was converted to make it 20-10 with 20 minutes left.

After that, it was all Japan as they scored 10 more points of a penalty and Matsushima scored his hat-trick. Russia tried attacking to get another try to get something out of the game but Japan just defended well and Japan secured the bonus point, and the game ended 30-10. The man of the match prize went Matsushima for his hat-trick. And it's just the start of a busy weekend of rugby.

Saturday is a big day with Australia taking on Fiji, then France taking on Argentina followed by defending champion New Zealand taking on longtime rivals South Africa.

Back with more from the Rugby World Cup.

KRO Mark