Wales v Japan
What the record holds about this fixture, beside what the model says about it.
24 – 23
15 November 2025Principality Stadium, Cardiff
What the model says about Wales v Japan
- Kick-off
- 17:40 UTC
- Elevation
- 9 m
- Temperature
- 10.7 °C
- Rainfall
- 0.5 mm
- Wind
- 18 km/h
Daily means at the ground, from the ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo.
Beside a name: points of margin the side has beaten its own rating by with him in the squad, against the same period without him. 13 of the 46 named here have enough matches on both sides to measure.
Wales
- 1Nicky Smith-0.9
- 2Dewi Lake(c)-5.3
- 3Archie Griffin+9.9
- 4Dafydd Jenkins+8.2
- 5Adam Beard+1.0
- 6Aaron Wainwright+1.1
- 7Alex Mann+5.6
- 8Olly Cracknell
- 9Tomos Williams+0.8
- 10Dan Edwards
- 11Josh Adams+7.4
- 12Ben Thomas
- 13Max Llewellyn
- 14Louis Rees-Zammit+10.8
- 15Blair Murray
Replacements
- 16Liam Belcher
- 17Rhys Carré-1.2
- 18Keiron Assiratti
- 19Freddie Thomas
- 20Taine Plumtree
- 21Kieran Hardy+1.3
- 22Jarrod Evans
- 23Nick Tompkins-1.1
Japan
- 1Kenta Kobayashi
- 2Kenji Sato
- 3Keijiro Tamefusa
- 4Epineri Uluiviti
- 5Warner Dearns(c)
- 6Jack Cornelsen
- 7Kanji Shimokawa
- 8Faulua Makisi
- 9Naoto Saitō
- 10Seungsin Lee(c)
- 11Tomoki Osada
- 12Charlie Lawrence
- 13Dylan Riley(c)
- 14Kippei Ishida
- 15Yoshitaka Yazaki
Replacements
- 16Shodai Hirao
- 17Sho Furuhata
- 18Shuhei Takeuchi
- 19Harry Hockings
- 20Tyler Paul
- 21Kenta Fukuda
- 22Shinya Komura
- 23Kazuma Ueda
Measured against the side's point-in-time rating, so opposition and venue are already removed, and over the years between a player's first and last cap rather than his side's whole history. None of the 778 players assessed has a gap larger than chance explains once the number tested is corrected for — a rating already contains the players who usually play for a side, so what a team sheet can add to it is small. Team selection is not an input to the forecast on this page. The full table and the method.
Possession and territory
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 47.0% | Possession | 53.0% |
| 32.0% | Territory | 68.0% |
Attack
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 96 | Carries | 183 |
| 352m | Carry metres | 583m |
| 5 | Clean breaks | 7 |
| 31 | Defenders beaten | 23 |
| 4 | Offloads | 9 |
| 170 | Passes | 227 |
Defence
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 213 | Tackles made | 128 |
| 83.0% | Tackle success | 76.0% |
| 23 | Missed tackles(fewer is better) | 31 |
| 5 | Dominant tackles | 3 |
| 3 | Turnovers won | 5 |
Set pieces
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 82.0% | Lineout success | 100.0% |
| 14 | Lineouts won | 15 |
| 100.0% | Scrum success | 100.0% |
| 5 | Scrums won | 3 |
Breakdown
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 99.0% | Ruck success | 98.0% |
| 77 | Rucks won | 122 |
| 7 | Mauls won | 2 |
Kicking
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | Kicks from hand | 40 |
| 906m | Kick metres | 942m |
Discipline
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Penalties conceded(fewer is better) | 10 |
| — | Yellow cards(fewer is better) | 3 |
| 1 | Red cards(fewer is better) | — |
| 12 | Knock-ons(fewer is better) | 9 |
Scoring
| Wales | Measure | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Tries | 2 |
| 3 | Conversions | 2 |
| 1 | Penalty goals | 3 |
Context beside the forecast, never inside it. Weather, team selection and match statistics are not model inputs, so a published probability does not move because any of them changed.