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Ballymore at Brisbane, Australia, was the setting for the USA Eagles’ first ever RWC match. The game was a Pool 1 fixture against Japan in RWC 1987. With Australia and England also in the group, both the competition teams on the day were in a must-win encounter.
In the build-up to the game the Japanese were the heavy favorites. This was displayed during the pre-match presentation in the following video itself. Yet, the match was far from being a one-sided affair in favor of the Asian country.
Both teams ran in three tries for the match. What ultimately separated the teams on the score sheet was goal-kicking. None of the three Japanese tries were converted, while Ray Nelson had a career-fining performance in scoring a try and a personal haul of 11 points.
SCORING
USA (21)
Try: Nelson, Purcell, Lambert
Con: Nelson (3)
Pen: Nelson
JAPAN (18)
Try: Taumoefolau (2), Yoshinaga
Penalty: Yoshinaga, Kutsuki
TEAMS
USA
1 Rick Bailey, 2 John Everett, 3 Fred Paoli, 4 Kevin Swords, 5 Ed Burlingham (capt.), 6 Gary Lambert, 7 Blane Warhurst, 8 Brian Vizard, 9 Mike Saunders, 10 Joe Clarkson, 11 Gary Hein, 12 Roy Helu, 13 Kevin Higgins, 14 Mike Purcell, 15 Ray Nelson
Replacements: 16 Mike Caulder, 17 Dave Horton, 18 Dave Dickson, 19 Tony Ridnell, 20 Neal Brendel, 21 Pat Johnson
JAPAN
1 Koji Yasumi, 2 Tsuyoshi Fujita, 3 Koji Horaguchi, 4 Toshiyuki Hayashi (capt.), 5 Atsushi Oyagi, 6 Katsufumi Miyamoto, 7 Sinali Latu, 8 Michihito Chida, 9 Hisataka Ikuta, 10 Seiji Hirao, 11 Shinji Onuki, 12 Eiji Kutsuki, 13 Kojiro Yoshinaga, 14 Nofomuli Taumoefolau, 15 Shogo Mukai
Replacements: 16 Tsutomu Hirose, 17 Toshitaka Kimura, 18 Seiji Kurihara, 19 Mitsutake Hagimoto, 20 Katsuhiro Matsuo, 21 Daijiro Murai
