The Junior All Blacks maintained their unbeaten record in the Pacific Nations Cup after brushing aside Japan 52-21 in Lautoka, Fiji, yesterday.
In the other third round match here, Samoa made the most of their opportunities to run in four tries in a 27-13 win over Tonga to hold on to second place in the five-nation competition.
The Juniors appeared set to humiliate Japan after sprinting to a 40-0 lead at halftime, but the second half was a different story as Japan found some composure and the New Zealanders took their foot off the gas.
Japan scored three converted tries to come back to 40-21 midway through the second spell, but two late tries to the Juniors stretched the margin beyond 30 points and their try tally to eight.
Juniors winger Hosea Gear scored a pair, bring his tally to six from three Pacific Nations matches and underlying the talent that saw him tour Europe with the All Blacks at the end of last year.
Blindside flanker Victor Vito also scored two and was always a handful for Japan with his strong defense and speed on counter attack.
Hulking No. 8 Sione Lauaki also touched down twice, while flyhalf Colin Slade and lock Craig Clarke scored one each, with Slade kicking five conversions and replacement Stephen Brett chipping in with another.
The Juniors scored a point a minute in the first half, with the floodgates opening after 11 minutes when Vito fended a Japanese defender and sprinted 60m to touch down.
Despite the first half hammering, the Japanese hit back in the second spell with their first points coming five minutes into the spell when No. 8 Takashi Kikutani dived over after the Japanese pack drove back their much larger opposition in a maul.
They struck again midway through the spell through tries to Jack Tarrant and outside center Koji Taira, with inside center Ryan Nicholas kicking three conversions.
In the earlier match, Tonga’s dominance of possession and territory counted for little because of a lack of coherence in attack.
Samoa scored their first try through lock Joseph Tekori after five minutes, when he stole the ball from the breakdown to run 25m to touch down.
They added their second six minutes from the break from a quick tap penalty that saw the ball swung through the backline to inside center Seilala Mapusua, who spun out of a tackle to score.
Tonga stayed in touch with two first half penalties from flyhalf Pierre Hola, but went into the break 10-6 down.
In the second half Samoa threatened to run away with the match, scoring two converted tries inside the first 15 minutes to stretch their lead to 24-6.
Winger Sailosi Tagicakibau and halfback and scrumhalf Junior Poluleuluigaga did the damage for Samoa before Tonga reduced the deficit to 11 points through a converted try from replacement forward Teu’imuli Kaufusi.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier