Brave Blossoms Endure Nightmare Loss to England in Nations Championship 2026

rugbyasia247 Posted On November 15, 2026

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Brave Blossoms Endure Nightmare Loss to England in Nations Championship 2026

England demolished the Japan Brave Blossoms at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, on Saturday, 14th November, with the contest over by the 20th minute, and the manner of the loss will add pressure to Eddie Jones and his team a year out from RWC 2027.

Photo Credit: RFU

Japan Co-captain Warner Dearns said, “There were some good points in our attack, and we were able to take some positives from that. As for areas to improve, we especially want to practice our defence for next week. In the first 20 minutes, we were playing with 14 players, and things didn’t go the way we wanted, so we need to make adjustments so that we can get off to a good start even with 14 players in the future.

We missed a lot of tackles today. We will carefully review the areas we need to improve today and work hard towards the match against Scotland starting tomorrow.”

Japan vs England nations Championship 2026

Photo Credit: JRFU

Within 2 minutes, England scored their first try, and Harry Hockings received a 20-minute red card (upgraded from yellow). By the end of the quarter, Will Joseph had scored a hat-trick of tries and England had a bonus point (he ended up with a haul of tries).

He became the second member of his family to score a hat-trick for England, as his brother Jonathan scored a treble against Scotland in 2017.

For all of Eddie’s talk of pulling off an upset, it was a nightmare start that endured for 80 minutes as the Japanese were outpowered and outclassed. But not many would have foreseen a 32-3 lead by minute 22.

Naoto Saito had slotted Japan’s penalty and Warner Dearns scored their first try (who else, his third consecutive match in which he has scored), but the two co-captains couldnt help as the side was blown away by the tide of attacks.

By the break, they were 10-47 behind and on course for the record defeat in which England scored 13 tries, and Japan missed 32 tackles in the Test.

Now, in five of the England wins, they have passed 50 points against Japan. We raised questions about where Eddie Jones’s team was a year out from the RWC 2027, and those concerns have been amplified in this massive defeat.

The Head Coach, Eddie Jones, said post-match: “Today was a difficult match. We had a red card early on, which made things even more difficult, and we couldn’t find a way to gain momentum during the game. It was a very tough day.

England put a lot of pressure on us, but we were well-prepared. However, when you’re so overwhelmed at the start of a match, it’s very difficult to recover from that.

We need to fix our defence. In attack, we were good when we had possession of the ball, but we gave it away too quickly. We need to fix that. I think we’ll learn a lot as we review the match.”

Japan vs England nations Championship 2026 - Eddie Jones

Photo Credit: Nations Championship – Brave Blossoms Head Coach Eddie Jones

Joseph, with his 5 tries, said, “There were a few changes this week, and it was a short turnaround, but we got together really quickly, and the performance we put out today, I think you could see how hard we’ve been working behind the scenes.

It’s a pretty special day, but I’m just very grateful for the team and the unseen bits that everyone’s doing that allowed me to go and score those tries.”

The Brave Blossoms face Scotland next weekend, with the Scots hosting the Wallabies tonight.