Japan v Wallabies
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Yoshitaka Yazaki, Kippei Ishida, Dylan Riley, Shogo Nakano, Tomoki Osada, Seungsin Lee, Shinobu Fujiwara, Michael Leitch, Kanji Shimokawa, Ben Gunter, Warner Dearns, Jack Cornelsen, Shuhei Takeuchi, Hayate Era, Kenta Kobayashi
Replacements: Kenji Sato, Ryosuke Iwaihara, Keijiro Tamefusa, Tyler Paul, Tiennan Costley, Kenta Fukuda, Charlie Lawrence, Sam Greene
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Last week's Aussie A v Japan XV game was like watching a game of touch.
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@Bovidae said in Japan v Wallabies:
Leitch still plays well for a 37 yr old.
This match was all about resting key players before the next 4 tests.
Was doing everything out there - hitting the ball up, taking LO ball regularly, winning breakdown turnovers.
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@NTA said in Japan v Wallabies:
Australia "B" come away with a win
Lol come on, that's a cop out.
Aussie made that very hard for themselves. They should have been out of sight in the first half. The Brave blossoms gained a bit of confidence as there was no Scoreboard pressure applied and ended up getting a lot closer than they should have.
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@African-Monkey tactics weren’t great by the Aussies in those conditions. Neither their 9, 10 or 15 provided the sort of kicking game to get the field position needed to apply pressure.
Japan lifted their intensity when they went down to 14 men and Aussies seemed to struggle.
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@ACT-Crusader said in Japan v Wallabies:
@African-Monkey tactics weren’t great by the Aussies in those conditions. Neither their 9, 10 or 15 provided the sort of kicking game to get the field position needed to apply pressure.
Japan lifted their intensity when they went down to 14 men and Aussies seemed to struggle.
Yeah one thing Japan deserve credit for was their goaline defence, especially in the midway point if the first half where they defended about 30 phases .
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@African-Monkey said in Japan v Wallabies:
Lol come on, that's a cop out.
Sure they didn't play well, but most of those guys aren't regular starters.
Bell is a bench option mostly, even if he's a future captain. Slipper's retirement has effectively elevated him. I'll be interested to see how the selections go with Ross throug the tour.
Nasser is third or fourth string hooker - Pollard and Faessler are on tour, BPA isn't. Folau Faingaa coming home might push him out entirely.
Nonggorr is third string behind AAA, Tupou, and maybe even Robertson
Williams might have a claim to bring a starter based on recent selections, along with LSL. Neither of them are Skelton or Frost.
Champion de Crespigny - who I rate as a player - sits behind Valetini in the current pecking order.
Tizzano behind McReight and maybe even Samu.
Valetini is first string, as is Gordon.
Edmed? He's in the current pack of 10s we're trying out. So any of them are first string by default.
Along with The Saviour: Carter Gordon 
Paisami only starts because Ikitau is on sabbatical, and he's only about as good as Hamish Stewart, who is uncapped.
Flook - a solid player - is nowhere near JAS. Daugunu in this current squad IMHO is probably better than both he and Paisami.
Pietsch first string IMHO, along with Kellaway. Not Toole tho. Jorgensen is on tour and ahead of each of them.
When looking at this, it is who we're missing that is key to determining what is "first string" and what is "available".
e.g. Tom Wright easily displaces any of the starting back three on form.
