{"id":390119,"date":"2026-01-04T01:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/390119\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T01:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:57:08","slug":"set-piece-brilliance-sends-koroibete-over-as-wild-knights-cruise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/390119\/","title":{"rendered":"Set-piece brilliance sends Koroibete over as Wild Knights cruise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Wallabies winger Marika Koroibete<\/a> got on the scoresheet as the Saitama Wild Knights<\/a> ran away with a dominant 33-3 win over the Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars<\/a> last weekend, which kept their unbeaten start to the season alive.<\/p>\n

Koroibete has retired from international rugby duty, telling reporters in Brisbane last October that he was \u201cdone with the Wallabies\u201d after playing 63 Tests. But the two-time John Eales<\/a> Medallist has continued to star in Japan<\/a> Rugby League One, contributing to a big Wild Knights win.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old lined up on the left wing in a star-studded Wild Knights side that included Japan internationals Ben Gunter<\/a>, Jack Cornelsen<\/a> and Dylan Riley. Former Hurricanes<\/a> midfielder Vince Aso<\/a> was named in the midfield, with Springbok Lukhanyo Am<\/a> in the opposing centre pairing.<\/p>\n

After starting their season with a fascinating 46-0 win over defending champions Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo<\/a> and a 37-19 win over Samu Kerevi\u2019s Urayasu D-Rocks, the Wild Knights looked to make it three from three in their final match of 2025.<\/p>\n

Gunter was shown a yellow card in the seventh minute and the home side made the most of that ill-discipline, with James Grayson<\/a> knocking over a penalty goal. It took the Wild Knights another 20 minutes to strike, but once they did, the heavyweights of Japanese rugby didn\u2019t look back.<\/p>\n

Atsushi Sakate crashed over from a rolling maul with 12 minutes left in the half, with Takaya Saito<\/a> adding the extras. The Wild Knights scored another two tries before the break, with Sakate completing a double and Gunter making amends.<\/p>\n

Sakate\u2019s eventful outing took another twist when the captain was shown a yellow card a few minutes into the second term. While the Wild Knights didn\u2019t concede during that period, they failed to build on their lead as well.<\/p>\n

Koroibete was next to strike, with the Wallabies great benefiting from a perfectly executed set-piece move off a lineout. Replacement hooker Kenji Sato<\/a> threw an inside pass to the winger, who raced away untouched to score the decisive score.<\/p>\n

Shota Fukui scored the only other try of the match, with the Wild Knights recording yet another confidence-building result. This 33-3 win kept them in pole position on the standings heading into the New Year, but there isn\u2019t much between them and second.<\/p>\n

Former Wallabies fly-half Bernard Foley<\/a> was masterful in a huge win for the Kubota Spears<\/a> against Tokyo Sungoliath. After falling to Toshiba Brave Lupus in last season\u2019s decider, the Spears sit in second place on the standings with an unbeaten 3-0 record.<\/p>\n

Kobelco Kobe Steelers, Tokyo Sungoliath, Toshiba Brave Lupus and Urayasu D-Rocks<\/a> occupy spots three to six on the standings with 2-1 records. That sets up some important early-season showdowns in round four, which starts on January 10.<\/p>\n

The Wild Knights host Shizuoka BlueRevs<\/a> at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium, while the Spears take on a MIE Honda Heat outfit searching for their first win. Sam Cane<\/a> and Cheslin Kolbe<\/a> will take on Ardie Savea<\/a> when Tokyo Sungoliath<\/a> play the Steelers in arguably the game of the round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Wallabies winger Marika Koroibete got on the scoresheet as the Saitama Wild Knights ran away with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-390119","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\/390119","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=390119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}