TBILISI – Lee Seung Sin slotted a penalty after the siren to give Japan a 25-23 win against Georgia in the final test of their four-match European rugby tour on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The tourists were in front most of the way at Tbilisi’s Mikheil Meskhi Stadium before giving up the lead when Georgia flyhalf Tedo Abzhandadze converted Tornike Kakhoidze’s 77th-minute try.<\/p>\n
But Eddie Jones’ men received a lifeline on their last drive when Georgia’s defensive indiscipline gifted Lee the opportunity to kick for the game.<\/p>\n
Coming off last weekend’s heartbreaking 24-23 loss to Wales, the world No. 13 Brave Blossoms arrived needing a win to lift them into the top 12 above Georgia and secure a more favorable draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n
Lee kicked three first-half penalties, plus the extras for Dylan Riley’s outstanding 80-meter try in the 10th minute, to send the tourists into the break with a 16-6 lead.<\/p>\n
The Japan flyhalf kept the scoreboard ticking over with another three-pointer early in the second half before the home side brought the deficit back to 10 with a penalty from Abzhandadze.<\/p>\n
Desperate Japanese defense prevented Georgia scoring their first try of the second period, with Jack Cornelsen’s ankle tap causing winger Akaki Tabutsadze to lose the ball over the whitewash.<\/p>\n
The hosts finally breached the Japanese defense with Demur Tapladze’s 69th-minute try. They appeared to seal the win when Kakhoidze dived over near the posts, giving Abzhandadze an easy conversion.<\/p>\n
The victory snapped a five-match losing streak for the Brave Blossoms stretching back to their July 12 defeat to Wales in Kobe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TBILISI – Lee Seung Sin slotted a penalty after the siren to give Japan a 25-23 win against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-302961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302961","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=302961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}