Japan have retained rookie flyhalf Ryunosuke Ito in their starting XV for Saturday’s Nations Championship clash against Ireland in Newcastle, Australia.
The 21-year-old university student impressed on his Test debut in last week’s 27-10 victory over Italy in Tokyo and keeps his place alongside scrumhalf Naoto Saito.
Coach Eddie Jones said the young playmaker will continue to receive the backing of those around him as he settles into international rugby.
“He’s a young 10, he’s going to have his ups and downs but we’ve got a team that’s going to support him,” Jones said. “Those guys will help look after him and we just want him to be himself.”
The only change to Japan’s starting side sees Taira Main replace Kippei Ishida on the left wing.
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Jones also returns to the coaching box after serving a four-match suspension imposed by the Japan RFU for abusing match officials during a tour of Australia earlier this year.
Jones believes his young side has an opportunity to create history.
“We’re really looking forward to putting in a winning performance,” Jones said.
“You look at the history of the games between Japan and Ireland, Japan’s only won the one game, which was at the home World Cup.
“So this is a great opportunity for this young team to put their name in history, and that’s what we want to do.”
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Jones added that touring Australia, which will host the 2027 World Cup, ” is a great experience for a young team”.
“You get to spend time with each other, have a bit of fun, train hard, experience a different culture.”
JAPAN – 15 Takuro Matsunaga, 14 Kazuma Ueda, 13 Dylan Riley, 12 Yuya Hirose, 11 Taira Main, 10 Ryunosuke Ito, 9 Naoto Saito, 8 Jack Cornelsen, 7 Kanji Shimokawa, 6 Ben Gunter, 5 Warner Dearns (c), 4 Harry Hockings, 3 Shuhei Takeuchi, 2 Mamoru Harada, 1 Takato Okabe.
Bench: Hayate Era, Sojiro Otsuka, Keijiro Tamefusa, Michael Stolberg, Michael Leitch, Tiennan Costley, Itsuki Kamimura, Sam Greene.
– AFP
Photo: Toru Hanai/Getty Images
The post Eddie sticks with varsity No 10 appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Japan have retained rookie flyhalf Ryunosuke Ito in their starting XV for Saturday’s Nations Championship clash against Ireland in Newcastle, Australia.
The post Eddie sticks with varsity No 10 appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
