Australia have swept their two-Test series against Japan, running in eight tries to beat Eddie Jones' Brave Blossoms 56-17 in front of 18,076 at Queensland Country Bank Stadium in Townsville on Saturday. It is the first time since 2024 that the Wallabies have won three Tests in a row.
The remarkable detail is where the points came from. Six of the eight tries were scored by front-rowers. Hooker Josh Nasser opened the scoring in the seventh minute, tighthead Taniela Tupou bulldozed over twice, loosehead Angus Bell burrowed over early in the second half, debutant prop Massimo De Lutiis marked becoming Wallaby number 1000 with a try, and replacement hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa added a late one. Flanker Charlie Cale and captain Harry Wilson finished the job for the back row.
For 40 minutes, though, this was nothing like a rout. Australian-born lock Harry Hockings charged down a Ryan Lonergan clearance to score for Japan inside the opening quarter, scrum-half Naoto Saito darted over from a quickly taken penalty, and centre Dylan Riley brushed off soft tackles to put the visitors in front on 33 minutes. Tupou's second, on the siren from a penalty advantage, sent the Wallabies in 21-17 ahead.
Then the second half arrived and Japan did not score again. Australia piled on 35 unanswered points.
"A team like Japan, if you're not up for it, they really make you pay," Wilson said afterwards.
"I was really proud of the group in that second half. We stepped it up, and we put on a great performance. I guess we went through the front door. We were physical and we had a lot more spark."
Japan captain Warner Dearns was not inclined to disown the way his side played, only the way it faded.
"It was a good, tough, really hard battle," Dearns said. "We put a real emphasis on trying to move them around and play a bit of our fast rugby. I think we did it well in the first half, but we couldn't keep it going in the second half."
That is the ninth defeat in nine attempts against Australia for Japan, a run stretching back to 1975 — and it comes a week after they pushed the same opponent to 35-32 in Osaka. Jones can point to the pressure his team generated in both halves of both Tests. He cannot yet point to a win.
Les Kiss made eight changes for this one, including an almost entirely new forward pack, and got a scrum that eventually broke the game open — Cale's 73rd-minute try came directly off a dominant set piece. RugbyPass, in its player ratings, noted Nasser hit all five of his lineout throws and that Tupou's double was the first time he had scored in back-to-back matches since April 2021. Planet Rugby's match takeaways described Australia's big men as having obliterated the Brave Blossoms after the break, with a clear difference emerging up front once the bench arrived.
The caveats are real. Australia's first-half execution and defensive reads were loose enough that a sharper side would have punished them, and Japan are ranked well below the opposition waiting later in the season. But Kiss has now won his first two Tests in charge, the scrum is functioning, and Carter Gordon's mazy break to set up De Lutiis was the sort of thing the Wallabies have rarely produced from 10 in recent years.
Townsville hosts four pool matches at next year's home World Cup. On this evidence, the venue will see worse rugby than it did on Saturday.
