TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Matthieu Jalibert and hooker Maxime Lamothe scored two tries each and skipper Maxime Lucu tallied 15 points from five conversions and a try in an influential performance to lead France to a 42-15 win over Japan on Saturday in the Nations Championship.<\/p>\n
Japan matched France physically in the first half and trailed 28-15 at halftime but lost touch on the scoreboard after conceding two tries early in the second.<\/p>\n
It was a successful three-week tour for the Six Nations champion French, who were coming off a 42-26 win over Australia in Brisbane last week after opening the new 12-team tournament with a 34-32 loss to the All Blacks in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Japan finished the first phase of the Nations Championship with consecutive losses to Ireland and France after opening the tournament with a 27-10 win over Italy.<\/p>\n
At the National Stadium in Tokyo, the French opened the scoring in the second minute when hooker Lamothe drove over after a close-range lineout.<\/p>\n
Japan gained a one-point lead with fullback Takuro Matsunaga kicking a penalty goal and then sparking a long-range counter-attacking try from his own quarterline that was finished in the left corner by winger Kippei Ishida in 15th.<\/p>\n
France regained the ascendancy over the next 20 minutes, rebounding with tries to fullback Jalibert in the 19th after sustained forward pressure, which resulted in a yellow card for Japan lock Harry Hockings, and No. 8 Alexandre Roumat in the 23rd.<\/p>\n
Skipper and scrumhalf Lucu darted over after a strong run into contact from his hooker Lamothe and touched down on the half-hour to score France\u2019s fourth try, securing a bonus competition point.<\/p>\n
After narrowly missing a try in the right corner, Japan cut the margin to 13 points with a try four minutes before the break.<\/p>\n
France scored early again in the second half, with Jalibert scoring in the 43rd when he changed running angles and took a short pass on Lucu’s inside shoulder and crossed near the posts.<\/p>\n
Lamothe scored again in the 51st minute, after sustained forward pressure from the big French pack, it was 42-15 and a much bigger margin seemed ominous.<\/p>\n
But Jalibert was yellow carded for a high tackle in the 58th and, although Japan wasn’t able to turn the one-man advantage into a try in the 10 minutes, it stopped France’s momentum.<\/p>\n
Japan had a try disallowed in the 63rd and didn’t score in the second half of a hot and humid evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Matthieu Jalibert and hooker Maxime Lamothe scored two tries each and skipper Maxime Lucu tallied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[34318,5,34315,34316,5602,67,34319,30846,34317,30841,357,28,29,22,24],"class_list":["post-53239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-alexandre-roumat","tag-france","tag-france-japan-rugby-nations-championship","tag-harry-hockings","tag-ireland","tag-italy","tag-kippei-ishida","tag-matthieu-jalibert","tag-maxime-lamothe","tag-maxime-lucu","tag-new-zealand","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}