{"id":592570,"date":"2026-07-18T20:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T20:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/592570\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T20:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T20:23:17","slug":"nations-championship-springboks-put-wales-to-the-sword-wins-for-france-scotland-and-australia-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/592570\/","title":{"rendered":"Nations Championship: Springboks put Wales to the sword; wins for France, Scotland and Australia \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A much-changed South Africa<\/a> ran in seven \u200ctries as they cruised to a bonus-point victory over Wales in Durban to continue their winning start in the inaugural Nations Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the scoreline, it was far from a polished performance by the Springboks as the home side wasted numerous opportunities to push further ahead.<\/p>\n

Wales offered little by way of a contest, held scoreless by the Springboks for a second game in a row having lost to the world champions 73-0 last November.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reaction: New Zealand ease to victory over Ireland<\/p>\n

It took less than five minutes for South Africa to hit the front \u200cas first Cobus Wiese \u2060burst through a couple of tackles before his brother Jasper barged over for their opening try.<\/p>\n

The Springboks won a penalty from the first scrum and demolished Wales in the second to lay down an early marker \u200cas Reinach picked up from the base of the third to score easily.<\/p>\n

The host\u2019s dominated possession and territory for the remainder of the \u200bhalf, but poor handling meant their third try came just before the break to give them a 19-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Rassie Erasmus\u2019 side added four more tries in the second half as their set-piece dominance continued, but so did their inaccuracy with ball in hand.<\/p>\n

\"France'sFrance’s Maxime Lucu scores a try against Japan. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

In Tokyo, France<\/a> ran in six tries against a ragged Japan, with Maxime Lamothe and Matthieu Jalibert each grabbing a brace for Les Bleus.<\/p>\n

France took advantage of the high-tempo, unstructured play with Alexandre Roumat and Maxime Lucu also dotting down.<\/p>\n

While Japan showed flashes of attacking brilliance, it was a disappointing end to a strong run of matches which included an emphatic 27-10 win over Italy and a dogged 20-36 defeat \u200bto Ireland.<\/p>\n

France got off to a flyer with Lamothe powering over from a lineout maul two minutes after kick-off. The Brave Blossoms looked shell-shocked in the opening exchanges \u200cbut \u200c\u200bshowed some mettle to inch into a slim lead with a penalty from fullback Takuro Matsunaga and a silky piece of counter-attacking play finished off by Kippei \u2060Ishida.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0All Blacks beat Ireland with plenty to spare at Eden Park fortressOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But that \u200bwould be the only time they were ahead. Minutes \u200blater Jalibert found himself in acres \u200cof space as a ragged Japan back-pedalled towards \u200btheir line. Having lost a man to the sin bin in the lead-up to they try, Japan struggled further and France \u2060took full advantage, Lucu grabbing the bonus-point try.<\/p>\n

Eddie Jones\u2019s side rallied before the break, with prop Sojiro Otsuka bulldozing through several French defenders from a close-range tap penalty to cut their deficit to 13 points for the break, but France had their way in the second half, Lamothe picking off his second try.<\/p>\n

Les Bleus lost two players to yellow cards in the final quarter, but still \u2060Japan could not add to their tally with the hot and humid conditions taking a toll.<\/p>\n

\"AustraliaAustralia head coach Joe Schmidt embraces Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii after the Wallabies’ win over Italy. Photograph: Paul Kane\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Australia lock Josh \u200cCanham scored a hat-trick of tries in \u200ca rampant win over Italy to give head coach Joe Schmidt<\/a> a fitting farewell in Perth.<\/p>\n

The result ended a run of six successive \u2060defeats for the Wallabies, with \u200bTom Wright, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Angus Bell, \u200cLen Ikitau, Billy \u200bPollard and Ben Donaldson also scoring \u2060in a feast \u2060of \u200bnine tries.<\/p>\n

Ryan Lonergan added five conversions, along with one for Donaldson, while captain Michele Lamaro and Australia-born Monty Ioane scored tries for the Italians.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies raced \u200cto a \u2060convincing 38-5 half-time lead which provided the platform for \u200ctheir first Test win since beating Japan \u200bin Tokyo last October.<\/p>\n

And at Murrayfield, Jamie Dobie scored a double off the bench as Scotland\u2019s replacements made their mark in a second-half comeback against Fiji.<\/p>\n

Pierre Schoeman and Scott Cummings also grabbed tries on their introduction as Scotland overturned a 10-point deficit to win 33-17.<\/p>\n

Jonny Gray opened the scoring for Gregor Townsend\u2019s side, but Fiji responded with three first-half tries, the final coming while they were down to 14 after a yellow card for Lekima Tagitagivalu.<\/p>\n

But Fiji\u2019s resistance was broken when the Scots dominated the final half-hour to seal a bonus-point win.<\/p>\n

Saturday results:<\/p>\n

New Zealand 40<\/b> Ireland 21<\/p>\n

Japan 15 France 42<\/b><\/p>\n

Australia 57 <\/b>Italy 10<\/p>\n

Fiji 17 Scotland 33<\/b><\/p>\n

South Africa 43<\/b> Wales 0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A much-changed South Africa ran in seven \u200ctries as they cruised to a bonus-point victory over Wales in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,248334,34134,19,17,156729,4334,107514,97580,132,4389,113564,4388],"class_list":["post-592570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-fiji-rugby","tag-france-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-italy-rugby","tag-match-report","tag-nations-championship","tag-scotland-rugby","tag-sports","tag-springboks","tag-wales-rugby","tag-wallabies"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}