Japan 27-10 Italy
Date:
Venue: Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium, Tokyo
Referee: Nic Berry (Australia)
Attendance: 21,329
Japan v Italy Match Reports
Japan made an impressive start to their Nations Championship campaign with a 27-10 victory over Italy in Tokyo. Takuro Matsunaga contributed 17 points as the Brave Blossoms outscored the Azzurri three tries to one to secure a deserved opening-round win. A selection of match reports is listed below:
Japan v Italy - Match Highlights
Japan v Italy - Match Stats
Japan (17) 27
Try: Dearns (11'), Matsunaga (17'), Gunter (47')
Conversion: Matsunaga (12', 18', 48')
Penalty: Matsunaga (25', 67')
Italy (10) 10
Try: Brex (5')
Conversion: Garbisi (6')
Penalty: Garbisi (40'+4)
Man of the match: Ben Gunter (Japan)
Japan v Italy - Team Line-ups
Japan Team
Forwards
- 1 Takato Okabe
- 2 Mamoru Harada
- 3 Shuhei Takeuchi
- 4 Harry Hockings
- 5 Warner Dearns (Captain)
- 6 Ben Gunter
- 7 Kanji Shimokawa
- 8 Jack Cornelsen
Backs
- 9 Naoto Saito
- 10 Ryunosuke Ito
- 11 Kippei Ishida
- 12 Yuya Hirose
- 13 Dylan Riley
- 14 Kazuma Ueda
- 15 Takuro Matsunaga
Replacements
- 16 Hayate Era
- 17 Sojiro Otsuka
- 18 Keijiro Tamefusa
- 19 Michael Stolberg
- 20 Michael Leitch
- 21 Tiennan Costley
- 22 Itsuki Kamimura
- 23 Sam Greene
Italy Team
Forwards
- 1 Danilo Fischetti
- 2 Tommaso Di Bartolomeo
- 3 Marco Riccioni
- 4 Niccolò Cannone
- 5 Andrea Zambonin
- 6 Alessandro Ortombina
- 7 Michele Lamaro (Captain)
- 8 Lorenzo Cannone
Backs
- 9 Stephen Varney
- 10 Paolo Garbisi
- 11 Monty Ioane
- 12 Tommaso Menoncello
- 13 Juan Ignacio Brex
- 14 Malik Faissal
- 15 Lorenzo Pani
Replacements
- 16 Gianmarco Lucchesi
- 17 Mirco Spagnolo
- 18 Muhamed Hasa
- 19 Riccardo Favretto
- 20 Ross Vintcent
- 21 Alessandro Fusco
- 22 Leonardo Marin
- 23 Tommaso Allan