{"id":856157,"date":"2026-08-15T12:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T12:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/856157\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T12:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T12:52:24","slug":"japans-young-rugby-team-gain-great-experience-despite-heavy-loss-to-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/856157\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s young rugby team gain \u2018great experience\u2019 despite heavy loss to Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Japan coach Eddie Jones said his young team must learn to keep their focus for 90 minutes but should not become despondent after collapsing in the second-half against Australia on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The visitors went in to the break trailing just 21-17 after an even first-half in Townsville but then leaked 35 unanswered points to crash 56-17.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">It followed a narrow 35-32 defeat against Les Kiss\u2019s team in Osaka last week.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWe showed we can do it for 40 minutes. You know, we\u2019ve played two good halves of rugby against Australia [over two Tests], we\u2019ve got blown away in the second half,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThey won the air, won the breakdown. We weren\u2019t good enough to defend our errors,\u201d he added. \u201cCongratulations to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Despite the heavy loss, Jones said it was all part of the learning experience for his mostly inexperienced side, with 10 players fielded in Townsville having fewer than 10 caps.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Shuhei Takeuchi of Japan applauds the fans after losing to Australia in a rugby Test match. Photo: EPA\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/e53d0f24-e3eb-4b75-b205-433474040369_df355628.jpg\" title=\"Shuhei Takeuchi of Japan applauds the fans after losing to Australia in a rugby Test match. Photo: EPA\"\/>Shuhei Takeuchi of Japan applauds the fans after losing to Australia in a rugby Test match. Photo: EPA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan coach Eddie Jones said his young team must learn to keep their focus for 90 minutes but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,28588,941,92253,7555,760,419545,46907,85,6649,426361,21418,426362],"class_list":["post-856157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eddie-jones","tag-japan","tag-les-kiss","tag-osaka","tag-rugby","tag-ryunosuke-ito","tag-saturday","tag-sports","tag-townsville","tag-warner-dearns","tag-world-cup","tag-yoshitaka-yazaki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856157","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=856157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}