Tier 2 - November internationals

[amz]

Romania Uruguay is also freely streamed on rugbytv.ro (12:00 GMT)

Bucharest was hit by an early winter, now is light snow and windy but at the time of the match it will be chilly and 6-7 Celsius so pretty good improvement . Yet after the rains / snow from last days I expect a muddy pitch.

 

[Croket66]

Japan - Russia line ups

JAPAN
1-Keita Inagaki (Panasonic Wild Knights, 24 caps) 2-Atsushi Sakate (Panasonic Wild Knights, 12 caps) 3-Koo Jiwon (Honda Heat, 6 caps) 4-Kazuki Himeno (Toyota Verblitz, 8 caps) 5-Wimpie van der Walt (NTT-Docomo Red Hurricanes, 8 caps) 6-(c) Michael Leitch (Toshiba Brave Lupus, 58 caps) 7-Masakatsu Nishikawa (Suntory Sungoliath, 2 caps) 8-Hendrik Tui (Suntory Sungoliath, 42 caps) 9-Kaito Shigeno (Toyota Verblitz, 6 caps) 10-Rikiya Matsuda (Panasonic Wild Knights, 15 caps) 11-Kenki Fukuoka (Panasonic Wild Knights, 29 caps) 12-Ryoto Nakamura (Suntory Sungoliath, 15 caps) 13-Timothy Lafaele (Coca-Cola Red Sparks, 13 caps) 14-Amanaki Lotoahea (Ricoh Black Rams, 7 caps) 15-Will Tupou (Coca-Cola Red Sparks, 5 caps)

16-Kosuke Horikoshi (Suntory Sungoliath, un cap) 17-Masataka Mikami (Toshiba Brave Lupus, 34 caps) 18-Hiroshi Yamashita (Kobelco Steelers, 50 caps) 19-Yuya Odo (Yamaha Jubilo, 3 caps) 20-Vakauta Isileli Nakajima (Kobelco Steelers, un cap) 21-Yutaka Nagare (Suntory Sungoliath, 14 caps) 22-Yu Tamura (Canon Eagles, 53 caps) 23-Yusuke Kajimura (Suntory Sungoliath, 0 cap)


RUSSIA
1-Valery Morozov (Enisey-STM, 14 caps) 2-Stanislav Selsky (Enisey-STM, 29 caps) 3-Vladimir Podrezov (VVA Saracens, 17 caps) 4-Andrei Ostrikov (Sale Sharks, 28 caps) 5-Andrei Garbuzov (Krasny Yar, 87 caps) 6-Vitaly Zhivatov (VVA Saracens, 2 caps) 7-Tagir Gadzhiev (Kuban, 16 caps) 8-Nikita Vavilin (Slava, 4 caps) 9-Vasily Dorofeev (Krasny Yar, 16 caps) 10-Yuri Kushnarev (Enisey-STM, 100 caps) 11-Daniil Potikhanov (VVA Saracens, un cap) 12-Dmitry Gerasimov (Enisey-STM, 55 caps) 13-Vladimir Ostroushko (Kuban, 38 caps) 14-Mikhail Babaev (VVA Saracens, 67 caps) 15-(c) Vasily Artemyev (Krasny Yar, 78 caps)

16-Evgeny Matveev (VVA Saracens, 50 caps) 17-Sergei Sekisov (VVA Saracens, 25 caps) 18-Anton Drozdov (VVA Saracens, 2 caps) 19-Alexander Ilin (Krasny Yar, 5 caps) 20-Anton Sychev (Metallurg, 8 caps) 21-Dmitry Perov (VVA Saracens, un cap) 22-Ramil Gaisin (Enisey-STM, 39 caps) 23-Sergei Trishin (VVA Saracens, 55 caps)

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

I'm praying Russia can put in some kind of credible performance as this fixture will be the curtain raiser at the RWC won't it? Good to see them picking players from 5 different domestic teams rather than just the Siberians.

Nakamura at 12 really caught my eye for the first time last week. Kick off 1405hrs GMT/UTC

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Spain vs Samoa link - kick off 1545hrs (UTC???)

http://www.rtve.es/deportes/mas-tdp/directo/

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Russia showing an English crowd how to handle Japan. They lead 9-0 after 20mins.

EDIT: 16-0!

 

[Welshdragon2000]

22-10 HT. Russia looking really good this month so far

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

What a try from Russia. Two crosskicks in the same move. Kushanrev might not get his spot back as fly half. 27-24 to Russia.

Yu Tamura finally on, hopefully reconciling with his former team mate Shigeno. Japan should take this over now.

 

[Brigantine]

I would never have guessed Uruguay to beat Romania! And they overtake them in the rankings as a result.

Tonga's loss means USA move to an even higher record in the rankings, Netherlands move up to rank 23, ahead of Germany, Belgium and Portugal...

Actually I'll just calculate the whole list:
(may have rounding errors)

• 8th - Fiji 77.95 RP (+2)
  
• 9th - France 77.33 RP (-1)
• 10th - Argentina 77.04 RP (-1)
  
• 11th - Japan 75.24 RP
• 12th - USA 73.66 RP (+1) - New record high
• 13th - Georgia 73.42 RP (+2)
  
• 14th - Tonga 73.02 RP (-2)
  
• 15th - Italy 72.75 RP (-1)
• Big gap (3.98 RP)
  
• 16th - Samoa 68.77 RP
• 17th - Uruguay 66.82 RP (+1)
• 18th - Romania 65.46 RP (-1)
• 19th - Russia 65.20 RP
• 20th - Canada 62.96 RP (+1)
• 21st - Spain 62.24 RP (-1)
• 22nd - Namibia 60.34 RP (+1)
• 23rd - Netherlands 58.45 RP (+3)
• 24th - Hong Kong 58.11 RP (-2)
• 25th - Belgium 58.09 RP
• 26th - Germany 57.82 RP (+2)
• 27th - Portugal 57.08 RP (-3)

And yeah, Russia was looking really impressive in those highlights vs Japan. Those cross-kicks were incredible!
Michael Leitch (6) did some real damage, and that Japanese 8 (Tui) cut through about 5 Russians like he was coated in teflon.

 

[Osezno]