Saturday was Japan’s fourth match of consequence since their World Cup quarter-final defeat to South Africa.

The pandemic has rammed home their isolation from the rest of the rugby world and this trip to Dublin was more reminiscent of the bad old days than most of what they’ve produced in recent years.

Two weeks ago, the Brave Blossoms ran Australia close in Oita but here they wilted in the face of Ireland’s relentless aggression and superior attack.

Coach Jamie Joseph master-minded his side’s famous win over the same opposition in Shizuoka two years ago, but this was a very different contest.

“They were really good in the set-piece and it started from there, especially in the lineout,” Joseph said of Ireland.

“There was pressure there but also mistakes from us, two or three not straights, uncharacteristic mistakes from us.

“We spoke about in our preparation about how if that happens one or two times, it’s really hard to win a game. And then you have yellow cards and it becomes really impossible.
“The Irish team played very well, put us under pressure at set-piece and they were playing for one of their brothers, Johnny Sexton with a nearly full stadium and knowing the All Blacks are coming next week.

“It’s going to be a hell of a game next week, it was clear that the intent of the Irish defensively, they will be ready for a great game of rugby in seven days time.

“We were on the receiving end of that and we need to get back up again because we’re on tour.”

So, there was a mix of Ireland’s high-pace, high quality performance and some ring-rust from the visiting team. Joseph is trying to move his side on with a limited window as 2023 approaches.

 

“The challenge is to get a look at players. We’ve got five guys injured and loosies (back-rows) playing in all sorts of positions which compromises our ability to play, especially against strong teams like Ireland.

“We have challenges with what happened in Super Rugby (losing the Sunwolves franchise) but this team is my challenge.”

After the game, their captain Lappies Labuschagne presented Sexton with a samurai sword to mark his 100th cap. It was a lovely gesture, the sharpest they’d been all day and their challenge is to get more games under their belt so that they can get to France with a chance of repeating their heroics of the last two World Cups.

For Andy Farrell, it was a sixth successive win and one of the most impressive displays of his tenure.

“You can look at all six and analyse them and say them and none of them were perfect neither,” he said as focus switched to the All Blacks next week. “We’ve got to the six ‘W’s through the lessons that we’ve learned and we want to make that seven, but we know that seventh is a tough ask coming into next week.”

IRELAND – H Keenan; A Conway, G Ringrose, B Aki (K Earls 67), J Lowe; J Sexton (capt) (J Carbery 62), J Gibson-Park (C Murray 58); A Porter (C Healy ), R Kelleher (D Sheehan ), T Furong (F Bealham); T Beirne (I Henderson 58), J Ryan; C Doris, J Conan, J van der Flier (P O’Mahony 51).

JAPAN – K Matsushima; D Riley, S Fifita, T Lafaele (R Yamanaka 39-h-t HIA, 69), R Nakamura (Yamanaka 55-69) HIA), S Fifita; Y Tamura (Y Niwai 40-51, R Matsuda 55), Y Nagare (N Saito 55); K Inagaki (C Millar h-t), A Sakate (Y Niwai 64), J Koo (AA Valu h-t); J Cornelsen, J Moore; B Gunter (Y Tokunaga 27) (T Tatafu 59), K Himeno, P Labuschagne.

Ref – N Amashukeli (Georgia).