{"id":452073,"date":"2026-03-01T14:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T14:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452073\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T14:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T14:06:08","slug":"battle-of-two-ex-bath-bosses-heaps-more-misery-on-all-blacks-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452073\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of two ex-Bath bosses heaps more misery on All Blacks star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tabai Matson won the battle of the ex-Bath<\/a> and Crusaders<\/a> coaching colleagues as BlackRams Tokyo<\/a> overpowered Todd Blackadder\u2019s Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo<\/a> 33-14 in Japan<\/a> Rugby League One yesterday to end a miserable February for Richie Mo\u2019unga and the defending champions, who lost all four matches they played.<\/p>\n

After a slow start, Brave Lupus had closed to within two points midway through the second half before a try by All Black TJ Perenara<\/a> blew the game open, with BlackRams scoring the final 17 points to win easily.<\/p>\n

Kobelco Kobe Steelers<\/a> continued their rampaging form, taking their tally of tries from the last 480 minutes of playing time to an astonishing 49, after crushing Urayasu D-Rocks<\/a> 78-19.<\/p>\n

While Israel<\/a> Folau was a try-scorer for D-Rocks for the third week on end, his effort was dwarfed by the hattrick scored by Australian-born Brave Blossoms backrower Tiennan Costley<\/a>, alongside the former Fijian Under-20 winger Inoke Burua<\/a>, who also scored three times.<\/p>\n

Just for good measure, Kobe skipper Brodie Retallick<\/a> added two more to his collection, which now stands at a league-leading 11.<\/p>\n

Saitama Wild Knights<\/a> bounced back from last week\u2019s defeat by Kobe, overpowering Mie Honda Heat<\/a> 66-19<\/p>\n

The third-placed Wild Knights scored nine tries \u2013 two each by backrowers Lachlan Boshier<\/a> and Ben Gunter<\/a> \u2013 in a confidence building hit-out before they face leaders Kubota Spears<\/a> in two weeks.<\/p>\n

The Spears remain top of the standings, two points clear of Kobe, after a hard fought 28-10 win over a game Yokohama Canon Eagles.<\/p>\n

Leon MacDonald\u2019s charges looked like anything but the bottom of the league as they fought back from a 21-0 halftime deficit to score the opening two tries of the second spell \u2013 one by their skipper Jesse Kriel<\/a> \u2013 before the game was finally put to bed by the Springbok centre\u2019s countryman, Spears midfielder Rikus Pretorius<\/a>, with a try two minutes from fulltime.<\/p>\n

Tokyo Sungoliath<\/a> continued their impressive recent form, while maintaining their stranglehold over Shizuoka BlueRevs<\/a> with a thumping win in today\u2019s match at Yamaha Stadium.<\/p>\n

Shizuoka has never beaten Sungoliath and it only took 20 minutes to ensure that wasn\u2019t going to change, with the visitors scoring four tries to romp to a 26-0 lead.<\/p>\n

The BlueRevs never recovered and were eventually overrun 57-24 placing their hopes of returning to the playoffs for a second straight season in peril.<\/p>\n

Sungoliath\u2019s third win on end, the nine-try-to-four success was a great preparation for the annual Fuchu derby against Brave Lupus to determine bragging rights between the western Tokyo rivals.<\/p>\n

Aaron Smith won the battle of the All Black scrumhalves as Toyota Verblitz<\/a> made it two wins in a row, beating Brad Weber\u2019s Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars<\/a> in a thriller, 31-29.<\/p>\n

The lead changed hands nine times in a game that produced nine tries, three by Verblitz winger Taichi Takahashi<\/a>, before his Brave Blossoms teammate Siosaia Fifita<\/a> scored the match-winner in the 78th minute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tabai Matson won the battle of the ex-Bath and Crusaders coaching colleagues as BlackRams Tokyo overpowered Todd Blackadder\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-452073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452073","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=452073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}