Injury-ravaged Sunwolves go down fighting to Rebels

The Rebels have opened the season with two straight wins, putting away an injury-ravaged Sunwolves 37-15 in Tokyo at Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium. The final scoreline didn’t reflect the toughness of the encounter, which had the sides locked 10 a piece at halftime.

The home side withheld early Rebels raids in opening five minutes but soon begun losing troops at a rapid rate. The side lost starting centre Timothy Lafeale to a head knock in the eighth minute, followed by flyhalf Hayden Parkes to a knee injury, then winger Aki Yamada and lock Sam Wykes both to sickening concussions.

The Japanese side had to play reserve flanker Yoshitaka Tokunaga on the wing for the remainder of the match.

Despite the horror injury toll, the Sunwolves fought back into the match after young Rebels winger Jack Maddocks opened the scoring by starting and finishing a wide movement in the eighth minute. He threw a pinpoint triple cutout pass to release Sefa Naivalu down the left side before backing up on the inside to finish the break.

Japanese international Amanaki Mafi scored the second after some quick hands by Maddocks had Mafi in the clear down the left-hand side. Debreczeni failed to find both conversions leaving the score at 10-0.

Despite a lack of execution in attack by the Sunwolves, inside centre Ryoto Nakamura was ferocious in defence disrupting a number of Rebels plays with hard-hitting play.

The Sunwolves turned a good period of attack into three points before a heads up intercept by winger Will Tupou evened things up at 10-all right before halftime.

The match was won in the first ten minutes following the interval, where the Rebels struck twice off well-worked set-piece scrum plays through wingers Sefa Naivalu and Jack Maddocks.

The first set-piece try used Will Genia off the base on an 8-9 truck and trailer to the open side. Genia was able to bounce outside the first defender and throw a double cutout to fullback Dane Haylett-Petty, who drew the last man to put Naivalu away.

Genia was again instrumental in the second movement which saw a similar cutout pass by the halfback. Centre Reece Hodge found Jack Debrezceni back on the inside to make the break and Maddocks was able to finish for his second try of the match.

A screen pass to Dane Haylett-Petty in the 52^nd minute opened up the Sunwolves again on the right-hand side where Maddocks scampered away 40 metres to score his third of the day, and all but seal the victory for the Melbourne side who were ahead 30-10.

Much like the first half, the Sunwolves were able to disrupt and fight back into the game in the last half hour. They managed to pepper the Rebels line for a 15-minute period before a well-worked scrum play saw reserve halfback Fumi Tanaka pick and run before turning inside to Number 8 Ed Quirk in the 78^th minute.

The Rebels were awarded a penalty try on the last play of the game as Quirk interfered with a pass that would have been a certain try for the visitors. The guaranteed seven points capped off the day and a 37-15 win for the Rebels who now top the Australian conference.

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