{"id":510632,"date":"2026-02-28T23:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T23:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510632\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T23:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T23:15:08","slug":"retallick-at-the-double-as-kobe-steelers-put-78-points-on-d-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510632\/","title":{"rendered":"Retallick at the double as Kobe Steelers put 78 points on D-Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former All Black lock Brodie Retallick<\/a> has continued his exceptional try-scoring run in the Japan<\/a> Rugby League One competition, this time bagging a double against the Urasayu D-Rocks.<\/p>\n

Kobelco Kobe Steelers<\/a> came out victorious, winning comfortably 78-19, where Retallick and two other Kiwis contributed on the score sheet.<\/p>\n

All Black vice-captain Ardie Savea<\/a> missed the round eleven matchup at Komazawa Olympic Park in Tokyo, but experienced midfielder and All Black teammate, Anton Lienert-Brown<\/a>, also featured in the Saturday evening drubbing.<\/p>\n

New Zealand-born first-five Bryn Gatland<\/a> was trusted to lead the team from the all-important No.10 position, where he went on to score 18 points off the boot.<\/p>\n

Dave Rennie\u2019s Kobe Steelers side had experienced Maori All Blacks<\/a> hooker Ash Dixon<\/a> to call upon, and that they did, with the former Highlanders<\/a> centurion dotting down for a try in the 22nd minute.<\/p>\n

Dixon found himself at the back of a dynamic rolling maul, where the Kobe Steelers forward pack were in no mood to muck around.<\/p>\n

Retallick was found at the back of the lineout, and from there, the rest of the forward pack managed to dismantle the D-Rocks maul defence to score a simple five-pointer halfway through the first half.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Rennie\u2019s side were already out to a 26-0 lead before Retallick got on the scoreboard, through tries to Dixon, Shunsuke Uenobou<\/a>, Tiennan Costley<\/a> and\u00a0Itsuki Kamimura.<\/p>\n

In the 34th minute, the Kobe Steelers had the ball down the right-hand side of the field close to the line, battling away, trying to get past the D-Rocks defence.<\/p>\n

Despite being close to the sideline, Kamimura had the presence of mind to dart towards the left side of the ruck and fire a pass to Retallick, who was running a superb line.<\/p>\n

All Retallick had to do was catch the ball and put it down, as the pass and the line ran by the 109-Test former All Black had done all of the damage.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Retallick\u2019s second and final try of the day was even simpler than the first, catching the ball with no one in front of him close to the line.<\/p>\n

The break started in their own half, where Gatland broke through the D-Rocks\u2019 defence by putting a left-handed fend on the covering defender.<\/p>\n

Gatland then linked up with Kiwi-born Michael Little<\/a>, who looked like he was going to go the whole way before being stopped just short of the line.<\/p>\n

Retallick, like he has done all the way through his career, was following in support before receiving the final pass just short of the line.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

With their convincing victory on Saturday, the Kobe Steelers move to the top of the Japan Rugby League One<\/a> standings, albeit with third-placed Kubota Spears<\/a> with a game in hand.<\/p>\n

The D-Rocks currently sit in ninth place with twelve points from ten games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Black lock Brodie Retallick has continued his exceptional try-scoring run in the Japan Rugby League One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-510632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510632","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=510632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}