Japan hold off Chile in Montevideo

Japan survived an early push from Chile to claim a 28-22 victory on the opening day of the World Rugby u20 Trophy in Montevideo on Tuesday. The playing surface remained saturated with water but at least the torrid downpour that engulfed the previous two matches receded to allow some variation in attack.

The opening quarter belonged to Chile with tries going to Domingo Saavedra and Rodrigo Gajardo though Tomás Salas could not connect on the conversion for either. Tomoki Kishioka was in better form on the day with the boot that proved decisive as he landed two well-struck penalties in the first half.

Hinata Takei’s try from a maul just ahead of halftime was the turning point. Kishioka couldn’t quite find the uprights with the extras but Japan now had the lead at 11-10 that they would not relinquish.

It was the driving maul again that put Takei over for another try early in the second half. The technical superiority of the Japanese forwards was beginning to show and while Vicente Huete replied with an opportune score soon after, a penalty try at a scrum sealed the deal for Japan.

A late score went to Clemente Saavedra with the No 8 sliding over in the corner to make for a tense final minutes. The last say, however, again went to Japan as Kishioka sent over his third penalty of the day to bring on the final whistle.

Chile now face Namibia on Saturday in what should be a competitive match. Japan have drawn Canada next and will be wary of a backlash after the North American representatives were below their best against the Namibians on Day One.

 

SCORING

JAPAN 28
Tries – H. Takei 2 (36’, 51’), Penalty try (66’)
Cons – T. Kishioka 1/2 (52’)
Pens – T. Kishioka 3/3 (10’, 28’, 80’)

CHILE 22
Tries – D. Saavedra (5’), R. Gajardo (19’), V. Huete (56’), C. Saavedra (71’)
Cons – T. Salas 1/4 (56’)
Pens – T. Salas 0/1

 

TEAMS

JAPAN
1 Chang-Ho Ahn, 2 Hinata Takei, 3 Taiki Fujii, 4 Naoaki Horibe, 5 Ryuga Hashimoto, 6 Faulua Makisi, 7 Takeshi Sasaki, 8 Shinko Tsuchiya, 9 Takumi Sue, 10 Taichi Mano (capt.), 11 Shota Fukui, 12 Tomoki Kishioka, 13 Yudai Yamamoto, 14 Yoshiyuki Koga, 15 Kosuke Naka

Replacements: 16 Miyu Arai, 17 Shimpei Kamata, 18 Kan Nakano, 19 Riki Sugihara, 20 Feinga Fakai, 21 Kenji Harada, 22 Yuki Yamamoto

CHILE
1 Piero Zunino, 2 Benjamín Jeria, 3 Marcelo Huerta, 4 Nicolás Garafulic, 5 Thomas Orchard, 6 Alfonso Escobar (capt.), 7 Vicente Huete, 8 Clemente Saavedra, 9 Domingo Saavedra, 10 Martín De Oto, 11 Rodrigo Gajardo, 12 Santiago Videla, 13 Santiago Gana, 14 Rodrigo Manzano, 15 Tomás Salas

Replacements: 16 Javier Carrasco, 17 Augusto Böhme, 18 Carlos Oyarzún, 19 Vicente Contreras, 20 José Escobedo, 21 Lucca Avelli, 22 Diego Salas

 

MATCH OFFICIALS

Referee: Francisco González (URU)
Assistants: Tornike Gvirjishvili (GRU) & Ionut Bodea (FRR)