Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nRugby.com.au breaks the week that was in ‘Aussies Abroad.’<\/p>\n
Europe<\/p>\n
In welcome news for Wallabies fans, John Eales Medalist Len Ikitau is back fit and firing for Exeter.<\/p>\n
Ikitau made his return last week for the Chiefs, recovering from a shoulder injury that had kept him out since December.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, his presence wasn’t enough to inspire victory in the Challenge Cup semi-final, going down 31-12 to an Ulster team still missing prop Angus Bell.<\/p>\n
Tom Hooper also featured for the Chiefs with a pair of tackle busts, while Bell will be pushing to be fit for the May 23 (local time) Final against Tom Banks’ Montpellier.<\/p>\n
The former Brumby started at fullback as they defeated Welsh team Dragons 18-12.<\/p>\n
In the Champions Cup, former Wallaby and Tongan international Adam Coleman made 20 tackles and a turnover as Bordeaux-Begles advanced to the Final with a 38-26 win over Bath, booking their spot against Leinster.<\/p>\n
Japan<\/p>\n
Noah Lolesio continues to carve up the second division of Japanese Rugby after his return from injury earlier in the year.<\/p>\n
The former Brumby and Wallaby scored two tries in a 26-point haul in Toyota Industries Shuttles Aichi 78-17 win over RedHurricanes Osaka.<\/p>\n
It takes him to 139 points from just nine games as they prepare for the promotion\/relegation series.<\/p>\n
In the top division, Melbourne Rebels backrower Tamati Ioane was the star of the penultimate weekend of the regular season, scoring two tries as Urayasu D-Rocks broke a 12-match losing streak in an upset 27-24 win over Saitama Wild Knights.\u00a0<\/p>\n
D-Rocks were without Wallabies legends Samu Kerevi and Israel Folau, while Marika Koroibete started on the wing for the Wild Knights.<\/p>\n
Third-placed Spears Funabashi Bay kept their hopes of a top two finish alive when they hammered BlackRams Tokyo 52-8, with Bernard Foley setting up two tries and slotting six conversions.<\/p>\n
Isaac Lucas and Liam Gill stood out in defeat for BlackRams, with Lucas making six tackle busts and Gill contributing three offloads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European Cup semi-final action dominated Northern Hemisphere Rugby over the weekend, with several Australians involved in big matches.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,97542,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-650143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-aussies-abroad","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650143","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=650143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}