France 51–29 Japan, 18 October 2003

Men's Rugby World Cup 2003 · Dairy Farmers Stadium, Townsville | Gurambilbarra · 18 October 2003Head-to-head

Full-time report

FRAFrance51

JPNJapan29

France won by 22 points.Half-time 20–16 · Tries 6–2

Pitch map

Layers

Swipe the pitch sideways to see it full size.

Totals only: no positions in the feed

Tacklesmademissed

FRA8718

JPN13731

Kicks at goalconv.pensdrops

FRA6/63/30

JPN2/25/50

← Japan attack · France attack →Hover a try for detail · dots = tackles made · dashed = penalty goal · orange = missed · squares = rucks · triangles = line breaks and defenders beaten · rings = turnovers · bars at the foot = zone counts · thin lines = kicks from hand = attacking entries and ball won per band

Territory is not in the feed for this match.
Zone counts are not in the feed for this match.
Tackle positions are not in the feed for this match.
Kick positions are not in the feed for this match.
Ruck, line break, turnover, lineout and kick-from-hand positions are not in the feed for this match.
Tries with a dashed ring have no recorded position, so they sit in the in-goal at the end that side attacked.

Tries and goal kicks as a table

Min	Team	What	Score
6′	France	Try, Frederic Michalak, converted	5–3
9′	France	Try, Aurélien Rougerie, converted	12–3
33′	Japan	Try, George Konia, converted	20–11
49′	France	Try, Fabien Pelous, converted	25–19
52′	France	Try, Christophe Dominici, converted	32–19
68′	France	Try, Aurélien Rougerie, converted	42–22
71′	Japan	Try, Daisuke Ohata, converted	44–27
78′	France	Try, Jean-Jacques Crenca, converted	49–29

Sample dataTerritory shares are estimated, and tries without a recorded position are placed in the in-goal. Other positions are as logged by the match feed and approximate.

Score progression

Drag to replay the match on the pitchSwipe the chart sideways for the full match.

6′Frederic Michalak9′Aurélien Rougerie33′George Konia49′Fabien Pelous52′Christophe Dominici68′Aurélien Rougerie71′Daisuke Ohata78′Jean-Jacques Crenca

FRA

Team stats

JPN

75%Possession25%

128Carries85

529Metres gained291

12Clean breaks6

31Defenders beaten18

170Passes106

15Offloads6

87Tackles made137

18Tackles missed31

82/85Rucks won63/66

17/17Lineouts won11/15

8/8Scrums won8/10

13/13Mauls won5/5

5Turnovers won9

9Penalties conceded11

25Kicks from hand24

689Kick metres656

Goal kicking
FRA conversions 6/6, penalties 3/3 · JPN conversions 2/2, penalties 5/5. Pale segment = set piece lost.

Match statistics and event positions come from World Rugby’s public match feed, which is unofficial and not licensed for reuse; TheBreakdown reduces them to the figures shown. This feed has team statistics but no positions for this match.

Line-ups

France

Japan

1Shin HasegawaProp
2Masaaki SakataHooker
3Ryo YamamuraProp
4Hiroyuki TanumaSecond row
5Adam ParkerSecond row
6Naoya OkuboFlanker
7Takuro MiuchiFlanker
8Takeomi ItoNumber 8
9Yuji SonodaScrum-half
10Andy MillerFly-half
11Hirotoki OnozawaWing
12Hideki NambaCentre
13George KoniaCentre
14Daisuke OhataWing
15Toru KuriharaFull-back
16Masahito YamamotoBench
17Masao AminoBench
18Koichi KuboBench
19Ryota AsanoBench
20Takashi TsujiBench
21Yukio MotokiBench
22Takashi YoshidaBench

Match officials

Sample data

Referee: Sample Referee
Assistant referee: Sample Assistant 1
Assistant referee: Sample Assistant 2
TMO: Sample TMO

Sample data Match officials is placeholder content: TheBreakdown has no data source for it yet, so nothing here is real.

Context

All-time, France 14–0 Japan, 1 drawn in 15 scored Tests. Full head-to-head

France going in

Japan going in

Previous meeting: 26 October 1985, France 52–0 Japan
Next meeting on record: 10 September 2011

Also on this day

Results to 27 September 2026. Scoring and line-ups come from World Rugby match summaries where available; older Tests may have neither.