{"id":176158,"date":"2025-10-02T23:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/176158\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T23:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:11:10","slug":"eddie-jones-names-124kg-former-australia-u20-lock-in-new-japan-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/176158\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Jones names 124kg former Australia U20 lock in new Japan squad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Australia<\/a> U20 lock Harry Hockings<\/a> is one of eight uncapped players named in Eddie Jones\u2019 Japan<\/a> squad for their training camps in Miyazaki and Oita.<\/p>\n

The former Reds<\/a> second-row, 27, qualifies for the Brave Blossoms on residency grounds having joined Tokyo Sungoliath<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n

Hockings will be joined by fellow uncapped Australian-born lock David van Zeeland in the squad, as well as South African-born Tyler Paul.<\/p>\n

Jones will also welcome back veteran captain Michael Leitch<\/a> to the squad, who missed the recent Pacific Nations Cup<\/a> campaign, where Japan finished runners-up, narrowly losing to Fiji<\/a> in the final.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Japan <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Australia <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Brave Blossoms take on Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Wales<\/a> and Georgia<\/a> in consecutive weeks across October and November.<\/p>\n

Japan squad
Loosehead props: Kenta Kobayashi<\/a> (Tokyo Sungoliath, 4 caps), Ryosuke Iwaihara<\/a> (Yokohama Canon Eagles, 2 caps), Taishi Tsumura<\/a> (Black Rams Tokyo, 0 caps)<\/p>\n

Hookers: Hayate Era<\/a> (Kubota Spears<\/a> Funabashi Tokyo-Bay, 5 caps), Kenji Sato<\/a> (Saitama Wild Knights, 4 caps), Shodai Hirao (Tokyo SG, 0 caps)<\/p>\n

Tighthead props: Shuhei Takeuchi<\/a> (Tokyo SG, 19 caps), Keijiro Tamefusa<\/a> (Tokyo-Bay, 15 caps), Sanshiro Kihara<\/a> (Tokyo SG, 0 caps)<\/p>\n

Second-rows: Warner Dearns<\/a> (Hurricanes, 27 caps), Jack Cornelsen<\/a> (Saitama, 24 caps), Tiennan Costley<\/a> (Kobelco Kobe Steelers, 9 caps), Waisake Raratubua (Kobe, 5 caps), Tyler Paul<\/a> (Tokyo-Bay, 0 caps), Harry Hockings (Tokyo SG, 0 caps), David van Zeeland (Tokyo-Bay, 0 caps)<\/p>\n

Back-rows: Michael Leitch (Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo, 89 caps), Faulua Makisi (Tokyo-Bay, 20 caps), Kanji Shimokawa<\/a> (Tokyo SG, 18 caps), Amato Fakatava<\/a> (BR Tokyo, 18 caps), Ben Gunter<\/a> (Saitama, 14 caps), Akito Okui<\/a> (Toyota Verblitz, 2 caps)<\/p>\n

Scrum-halves: Shinobu Fujiwara<\/a> (Tokyo-Bay, 16 caps), Kenta Fukuda<\/a> (Tokyo SG, 5 caps), Shuntaro Kitamura<\/a> (Shizuoka BlueRevs, 1 cap)<\/p>\n

Fly-halves: Lee Seung Sin (Kobe, 24 caps), Sam Greene<\/a> (Shizuoka, 4 caps), Shinya Komura<\/a> (Toyota, 0 caps)<\/p>\n

Centres: Dylan Riley<\/a> (Saitama, 33 caps), Siosaia Fifita<\/a> (Toyota, 16 caps), Shogo Nakano<\/a> (Tokyo SG, 10 caps), Charlie Lawrence<\/a> (Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars, 4 caps), Yuya Hirose<\/a> (Tokyo-Bay, 4 caps), Yuki Ikeda<\/a> (BR Tokyo, 1 cap)<\/p>\n

Wingers: Tomoki Osada<\/a> (Saitama, 21 caps), Kippei Ishida<\/a> (Yokohama, 5 caps), Haruto Kida<\/a> (Tokyo-Bay, 2 caps), Kazuma Ueda<\/a> (Kobe, 0 caps)<\/p>\n

Full-backs: Takuro Matsunaga<\/a> (BL Tokyo, 5 caps), Ichigo Nakakusu<\/a> (BR Tokyo, 3 caps)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Australia U20 lock Harry Hockings is one of eight uncapped players named in Eddie Jones\u2019 Japan squad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-176158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}