Bouyed by his team’s narrow 35-32 loss the week before in Osaka, Eddie Jones was talking up a Wallaby takedown in their backyard. Especially since they will likely take on the Wallabies in the Round of 16 in Brisbane at next year’s Rugby World Cup in Australia. If anyone can do it, it would be Jones, having shocked the rugby world at the 2015 Rugby World Cup by defeating the might of South Africa 34-32 at the death in the Miracle in Brighton. However, in Townsville, a happy hunting ground for the Wallabies, it was not to be as Les Kiss’ men turned on the blowtorch for the second half to blitz the Brave Blossoms with 35 unanswered points to take the match 56-17.

The Brave Blossoms are not that easy a side as when the All Blacks thrashed them 145-7 at the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa or the 91-3 defeat by the Wallabies in Lyon at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. They had their Miracle in Brighton win and backed it up at home in the 2019 World Cup, topping their pool by beating Ireland (19-12) and Scotland (28-21) along the way. Fast forward to 2026, and Eddie Jones, back at the helm, has plucked a young 21-year-old out of Meiji University, Ryunosuke Ito, without any professional rugby to play five-eighth against a resurgent Italian side, coming off wins over Scotland and England at this year’s Six Nations Championship, to play at Tokyo’s iconic Chichibu-no-Miya Stadium. It was a full house on a sunny 4th of July day in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward, where the Brave Blossoms delivered an emphatic 27-10 win. Our own Nic Berry was blowing the whistle that day.

So, the two matches against Japan, although ranked 4 places below us, were always going to be tricky for a new coach. Les Kiss wasn’t inventing the wheel and wasn’t about to make drastic changes to the side Joe Schmidt had assembled. As Ryan Lonergan said, it was more about “Evolution, not revolution”. The three-point victory at Osaka’s Hanazono Stadium in the oppressive heat and humidity was a lucky escape to notch his first win for the Wallabies.

With the shackles now removed, Kiss finally picked a team more to his liking, upsetting Waratah supporters with a strong Reds flavour, with 11 in the match 23. The return of Lukhan Salakai-Loto, arguably the best Aussie performer in Super Rugby Pacific, alongside Isaac Henry pairing with Hunter Paisami and Carter Gordon in the midfield just seemed so natural. Kiss had nurtured these boys’ injuries at the Reds during his tenure over the last three years and knew intimately how much they had trained and rehabilitated. That faith was repaid in spades at Country Bank Stadium last weekend, and now a more confident squad embarks on their South American tour for two matches against a very formidable foe in Argentina, just ahead of the Wallabies in the latest world rankings.