The Metcalfe sisters played for Wales together for the first time when lock Branwen came off the bench for her first cap against Canada at the 2025 World Cup.<\/p>\n
They started the uncapped fixture against the Baa-Baas but join forces in the XV for the first time at Test level against Japan.<\/p>\n
Branwen, 20, starts her sixth successive Test and has a new second-row partner in fellow bright prospect Aiono.<\/p>\n
Nel, 21, returns on the wing rather than full-back for her first cap since the World Cup after a knee injury that forced her to sit out the Six Nations.<\/p>\n
“She was a shining light at the World Cup, which was tough for us,” said Lynn.<\/p>\n
“Every time that she gets the ball, something will happen. She has got fitter, stronger and faster, and she’s excited to go out there on Saturday.”<\/p>\n
Wales are 11th in World Rugby’s rankings, a spot above Japan.<\/p>\n
Last month the Sakura Fifteen lost 55-21 to Italy and were beaten twice by Ireland, 31-24 in the WXV Global Series and 43-19 in an extra Test.<\/p>\n
“Japan ran Ireland close in the first Test and they are very efficient in what they do, very regimented,” said Lynn, who opts for six forwards on his bench.<\/p>\n
“They’ve got a very good maul and we are not going to be taking them lightly at all.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metcalfe sisters played for Wales together for the first time when lock Branwen came off the bench…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-810207","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\/810207","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=810207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}