Watch the Wallabies tackle the All Blacks live and on-demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe speedy Japanese led only 21-19 at halftime but were relentless in scoring five second-half tries to dispatch Tonga.<\/p>\n
“We just needed to defend better around the ruck,” Japan coach Eddie Jones said. <\/p>\n
“We were giving Tonga too much leeway on the front foot. We adjusted that a little bit and added a little more kicking to our game.”<\/p>\n
Tonga has not beaten Japan since the third-place match of the 2015 Cup.<\/p>\n
“Against Tonga it’s always going to be a physical game,” Japan captain Dearns said. <\/p>\n
“We were able to match them and able to play our rugby, which gave us a bit of an advantage.”<\/p>\n
Japan will face the winner of a later semi-final between Canada and Fiji in next Saturday’s championship match at Salt Lake City, Utah. Fiji beat Japan 41-17 in last year’s final.<\/p>\n
“We were able to do our set pieces and continue to fight for 80 minutes against a physical Tonga team,” Japan tight-head prop Shuhi Takeuchi said through a translator.<\/p>\n
“Next week is going to be very physical again but we’re going to review some good points and bad points and we’re going to do our best.”<\/p>\n
All four semi-finalists are qualified for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia and 2031 Rugby World Cup host United States qualified as well by beating Samoa 29-13 in the fifth-place match.<\/p>\n
The US Eagles advanced after failing to qualify for the 2023 World Cup in France.<\/p>\n
Samoa will face Chile next weekend at Salt Lake City and on September 27 in Santiago in a two-game playoff series for a World Cup spot.<\/p>\n
Tonga took a 5-0 lead on flanker Fotu Lokotui’s try in the sixth minute but Japan answered on Era’s long breakaway run in the 10th minute, the conversion giving Japan a 7-5 edge.<\/p>\n
Tongan-born Fakatava stretched Japan’s lead with a try in the 18th minute, busting out of a scrum for his fifth try of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Tonga captain Ben Tameifuna scored in the 26th minute and Patrick Pellegrini’s conversion lifted Tonga within two.<\/p>\n
Dearns answered with a try in the 32nd minute but Veikoso Poloniati’s try in the 38th minute pulled Tonga within 21-19 at halftime.<\/p>\n
In the 42nd minute, Fujiwara’s short kick was grabbed and touched down by Riley for a try. Lee Seung-sin kicked a penalty in the 50th minute, Fujiwara added a try in the 55th minute and Lee hit another penalty kick in the 59th.<\/p>\n
Pellegrini answered with a Tongan try in the 63rd minute but reserves Sato and Tamefusa and a penalty try in the last eight minutes boosted Japan’s final margin.<\/p>\n
“Just really disappointed. We worked pretty hard the past couple weeks,” Tonga’s Tameifuna said. <\/p>\n
“We got points in the first half. We just didn’t build on it in the second half.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seven players scored a try for Japan in an overwhelming 62-24 rout of Tonga on Sunday that advanced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,941,760,85],"class_list":["post-143836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-japan","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}