Coach Eddie Jones is hoping Japan is embraced as the home crowd in Newcastle with his team squaring off there against Ireland in a Nations Championship Test in July.
The Brave Blossoms will host the Irish at McDonald Jones Stadium as part of the inaugural 12-team tournament.
It pits the top dozen nations from the Northern and Southern hemispheres in a six-round contest, culminating in a finals weekend at Twickenham in London in November.
Japan’s given up a home match due to operational logistics and to reduce travel demands on players, while all of Fiji’s games will be played in the UK with their stadiums not meeting requirements.
It’s the first neutral Test hosted in Australia since the COVID-19 pandemic and a taster for the 2027 Rugby World Cup, with Japan meeting Samoa in a pool fixture at the same ground.
Considering basing his team in the surf city during the global showpiece, Jones hopes Novocastrians will adopt the Japanese team as their own for the 11 July encounter.
A record Newcastle rugby crowd of more than 28,000 watched the Wallabies secure a hard-fought 21-18 victory over Fiji to open the 2025 international season.
“It’s a great experience for us to play here, get used to the environment, maybe become the team of Newcastle,” said Jones, whose last visit to Newcastle was when he played for Sydney club Randwick against the Maitland Blacks.
“When we play up here in the World Cup, we want all the Newcastle people to support Japan.
“We’ve got a couple of days now looking around Newcastle to see what the opportunities are.
“We’ll have a relatively young team for the World Cup… having had the experience of playing in this ground, just that little bit of familiarity will definitely be a potential advantage.”
It will be Jones’s first Test on Australian soil since his acrimonious split as Wallabies mentor following the 2023 Rugby World Cup debacle.
Ireland’s won 10 of 11 Tests against Japan dating to the 1991 Rugby World Cup, with Japan’s only victory coming at home in the 2019 Rugby World Cup at Shizuoka Stadium.
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