Townsville (Australia) (AFP) – Eddie Jones senses Japan are on the cusp of finally winning a Test against Australia, with the wily coach confident his team can "make new history" when they meet in Townsville on Saturday.
Issued on: 14/08/2026 - 03:30
2 min Reading time
Despite eight straight defeats since they first played each other in 1975, Japan are a team growing in confidence, losing their last two games against the Wallabies by just four points and three points respectively.That included last week's narrow 35-32 loss in steamy Osaka.With Australia resting some of their big guns and making a raft of changes, Jones believes the time could be right to finally snap the drought."We haven't achieved what we want to achieve yet, which is victory over Australia," the Australian said of a team he used to coach."Just looking at the history in front of me, we've played eight games against Australia as a country. The first five games was an average loss of 33 points, and the last two games our average loss was three-and-a-half points. "So we're moving in the right direction... this is an opportunity for us to create new history for Japan and this group of players."Jones has made five changes to his starting line-up, with Tiennan Costley coming in as flanker and Harry Hockings returning at lock.He will have two university students among the backs -- Yoshitaka Yazaki on the right wing and Ryunosuke Ito at fly-half -- while Shunsuke Uenobo starts at inside centre and Haruto Kida on the left wing."We've had an excellent preparation. Couldn't have asked for more from the players, so we're ready to go," said Jones, adding that they have been working on their shortcomings."We let ourselves down with our execution in the last game. We created good opportunities. Really focused on that in training this week."'Savvy Jones'Australia coach Les Kiss, whose team won in Osaka in his first match in charge despite a 20-minute red card, is attempting to steer the Wallabies to three consecutive victories for the first time in two years.While his side got the job done, the fluency shown in their previous Test, a 57-10 romp over Italy, was missing with playmaker Declan Meredith underwhelming and dropped.
