Jamie Joseph’s Japan men’s national rugby team and Dave Rennie’s Australia side will clash in their first test match since 2017 next month, the Japan Rugby Football Union said Friday.
The Brave Blossoms, ranked 10th in the world, will seek to overturn their 0-5 head-to-head record against the fifth-ranked Wallabies when the two sides meet on Oct. 23 at Showa Denko Dome in Oita Prefecture, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.
It will be the first Japan-Australia test since November 2017, when Australia romped to a 63-30 win in Yokohama.
“As a team, we’re very much aware of the significance of this match, being almost two years to the day that Japan last played international rugby at home, in our Rugby World Cup quarterfinal,” Joseph said of Japan’s economically successful Rugby World Cup 2019.
“The opportunity to play a test match on home soil, against a team the quality of Australia, is a hugely important moment for us to reconnect with our fans and the wider Japanese public, following the success of the 2019 World Cup.”
The game will be the first of four tests for the Brave Blossoms this autumn with Ireland, Portugal and Scotland providing the opposition on Nov. 6, 13 and 20, respectively, during Japan’s tour of Europe.
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