Wallaby shines, ex-England backrow scores but Eddie Jones gets last laugh
Bernard Foley came out on top in the battle of the Wallaby fly-halves as Funabashi Tokyo Bay beat Matt Toomua's Sagamihara Dynaboars 60-22 in Tokyo to retain second place in Japan Rugby League One.
Foley contributed 16 points to the win, becoming the first player in the league this season to surpass a century, ending the day with 102 points to his name.
Sunday's win keeps the Spears hot on the heels of the league-leading Saitama Wild Knights, who extended their remarkable unbeaten on-field streak in the league to 40 games after comfortably disposing of Will Genia's Hanazono Kintetsu Liners 41-6 at Kumagaya on Saturday.
While Saitama coach Robbie Deans used the opportunity against the league's bottom side to rest several key players, including the Wallabies' star winger Marika Koroibete, the Wild Knights still scored six tries in their victory, with former Hurricanes centre Vince Aso and former Chiefs flanker Lachlan Boshier grab bing five-pointers.
Wallaby coach Eddie Jones will have been happy with the team he advises, Tokyo Sungoliath, after it retained third position on the competition ladder with a hard-fought 18-7 win over the Ricoh Black Rams.
Former England No. 8 Nathan Hughes scored his first try for the Black Rams, but the Auckland-educated Fijian's effort was not enough to bring down Sungoliath, who kept Ricoh pointless in the second half.
After being held scoreless for their last 224 minutes of play across three matches, Michael Cheika's Green Rockets Tokatsu finally cracked it, when former Crusaders backrow Whetukamokamo Douglas rumbled across for the opening try at Toyota Verblitz, as part of a rolling maul.
The try was one of two the Green Rockets managed against Toyota, but they weren't enough to knock off Steve Hansen's men, who came from behind to claim a 21-18 victory.
The Toyota attack was sparked by the clever moving of the regular Springbok fullback Willie le Roux to fly-half, with the South African having a hand in all three Verblitz tries as he relished the opportunity to play in the first receiver role.
It rained tries at Oita on Saturday as Yokohama Eagles and Brave Lupus Tokyo shared 15 between them, with Faf de Klerk's Eagles winning 59-48.
Yokohama took the points to consolidate their hold on fourth position, five points ahead of fifth-placed Toshiba on the ladder.
There was only one game in the lower divisions this weekend, but it was a memorable occasion for Werribee, Victoria, born Jake Abel.
The former Western Force halfback scored a try eight minutes into his Japan Rugby League One debut to help the previously winless Skyactives Hiroshima hammer the Wycliff Palu-coached Kurita Water Gush Akishima 38-5.
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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