USA Women Tie Japan in Kitakyusho
USA Women Tie Japan in Kitakyusho
Kitakyusho, Japan—A late penalty goal from McKenzie Hawkins ensured the USA salvaged a 17-17 tie with Japan on a hot Sunday evening in Kitakyushu.
The Eagles probably had the run of play in this game, and had several very good opportunities to score that didn't quite come off. Added to that was Head Coach Sione Fukofuka's game plan which often looked to have forward pods take passes right near the gainline. That works nicely when the timing is very good and the ball is caught just before contact, allowing the ballcarrier to potentially break a tackle and move the defense back. But when one of those criteria isn't there—and the humidity and heat made the ball hard to handle—then it results in balls lost in contact.
That happened a bit too often for the USA, especially when inside the Japanese attacking zone. On the plus side, they were in the attacking zone several times. Both sides tried to attack wide despite the ball being difficult to handle but they also worked to use the kicking game when nothing was on. Hawkins and captain Tess Feury did well to handle kicks, but it was up to Hawkins almost exclusively to answer back with the boot. One kicking exchange 10 minutes in resulted in a goalline dropout by the USA and that was just what Japan wanted.
Hawkins sent the dropkick directly into touch, which resulted in a Japanese lineout five meters from the USA line. The Sakura mauled it closer and prop Wako Kitano picked up, stayed low, and was over just like that. Flyhalf Ayasa Otsuka slotted the very difficult conversion and Japan was up 7-0.
After that the USA started to get more good field position. No. 8 Freda Tafuna featured heavily in the ground-gainers but overall it didn't really matter who took the ball up—when the USA was set quickly to take a pass from scrumhalf Olivia Ortiz or just picked up and surged on, they asked serious questions from the Japanese defense.
The Sakura was up for it, but still the Eagles camped out in Japan's 22 for about 15 minutes. They just didn't get any points for it. Finally a break from Atumata Hingano got them back in scoring position and while Japan defended, they were penalized. The Sakura was very good at subtly slowing ball down in the ruck, something most of the relatively new ruck laws have been designed to stop. Finally a high tackle penalty set up a lineout for the USA. Tafuna took the throw brilliantly and off the maul vice captain and hooker Kathryn Treder popped off the back and cut between two tacklers to score.
Or did she? A look at the replay by the officials showed that Tafuna had bobbled the ball and it had bounced off another player before Tafuna regathered, making it a knock-on and accidental offside. No try. But Japan wasn't out of trouble. A bruising run from Tafuna helped them go forward and then, after a few phases, Ortiz hinted at passing, saw the gap the fake created, and zipped in from 10 meters out. A brilliant piece of vision from the Davenport #9 and with the Hawkins conversion it was 7-7.
The USA had equalized, but it had taken them the better part of 20 minutes.
Japan answered almost immediately. The Eagles tried to clear from their 22 but center Mana Furuta raced in to block the kick from Hawkins. The ball rolled on toward the USA line but Furuta couldn't quite pick it up. Still the USA was now on the back foot, and when the Japanese counter-rucked well enough to force a penalty, the Sakura tapped quickly and were wide and close within three passes.
Feury was there to make the tackle, but a quick pick and pass put wing Kanako Kobayashi over in the corner. The conversion was away but now with three minutes left in the half Japan led 12-7.
The Eagles responded really well. They ran hard and exploited a not-rolling penalty to set up a lineout inside Japan's 22. From there Hallie Taufoou nabbed the throw and Tafuna popped off the back to go about 15 meters almost to the USA line. Japan was guilty of killing the ball (and the referee played advantage on it) but the USA kept going and after a couple of forward surges, Ortiz sent a laser pass to Summer Harris-Jones, who was untouched to the tryline.
That tied it up 12-12, and Hawkins added the very difficult kick to make it 14-12 as the halftime whistle blew. No yellow card for Japan for flopping onto the ballcarrier in a scoring chance, but the USA had the lead.
The second half began in Japan's favor and with a penalty advantage they grubbered through on a play that looked very troubling. Tafuna was there to cover the kick and it bounced off her knee past the dead-ball line. (They checked the TMO because if she had thrown the ball dead that would have been a penalty). But moments later Japan was knocking on the door once more. The USA was guilty of being too slow to get behind the maul and regather to defend, and the result was flanker Masami Kawamura picking up and taking it over.
Otsuka's conversion attempt hit the post, and it was 17-14 for Japan.
The result of the game was mostly the USA trying to score. Three times they blocked clearance kicks, but were unable to turn that into a score. When the USA forwards worked quickly and worked the offloads, they were very dangerous. But a couple of those attacks were halted because the USA players were too slow to get into formation to capitalize. One of those chargedowns was from Emily Henrich (drafted into the starting lineup just before kickoff), and she linked with flanker Rachel Ekrecke and her chicken-wing offload for Hingano didn't quite come off. If it had Hingano might well have scored.
A counterattack run from debutante Sariah Ibarra sliced up the Japanese defense. And while she linked with Taufoou who passed to Feury, the skipper eschewed the space out wide to cut back into contact.
It was a frustrating time for a USA team that was putting some pieces together, but still had some wonky links in the chain. Finally, with less than four minutes remaining, Japan was pinged for offside right in front of the posts and 22 meters out. The decision was obvious and Hawkins pointed to the posts and put the ball over the bar.
That tied it up 17-17. Both teams had the ball in the closing moments but couldn't really do much with it. The USA defense in the final 35 minutes was outstanding and they forced a knock-on which ended the match.
"Thank you to all the fans and Japanese team for such a warm welcome. This environment is incredible," said Feury after the game. "It was definitely a tough match, we let ourselves down and we had a gameplay and unfortunately didn’t execute it into all areas. We definitely have some big takeaways into next week.
"We're lucky we get another shot next week which is super exciting. We definitely want to clean up our breakdown. The Japanese team came up physical and we weren’t ready. So we have a few days to prepare now so we’re gonna go back to work."
Fukofuka also thanked their hosts and said he was looking forward to the rematch on the 17th.
"We’ve been here four days and loved our time here. It’s been very warm but today the weather was much better and the spectacle was a great challenge. We knew the match would be tough, we knew Sakura 15 wold play for 80 minutes and that’s exactly what happened. Japan are a very physical side in terms of speed to ball, very good at the breakdown, and great work rate so it makes it really challenging to keep the ball in play and to find space. That’s how it turned out today, they put pressure at breakdown.
"Next week we’re going to work on our attacking breakdown, attacking quicker, using the ball more, finding edges in space and taking more advantage of our line out and maul."
USA 17
Tries: Ortiz, Harris-Jones
Convs: Hawkins 2
Pens: Hawkins
Japan 17
Tries: Kitano, Kobayashi, Kawamura
Convs: Otsuka
Emerson Allen, Sophie Pyrz, and Sariah Ibarra all earned their first caps for the USA in this game.
