2026 Australia–Japan rugby union test series
football match
The Australia and Japan national rugby teams toured each other in a two-test, home-and-away series in August 2026. The tour was known as the 2026 Lipovitan-D Challenge Cup in Japan (Japanese: リポビタンDチャレンジカップ2026), and the 2026 Flight Centre Series in Australia for sponsorship reasons. The matches were confirmed by Rugby Australia (RA) in November 2025 following the restructuring of the annual Rugby Championship into a revised cycle, under which the competition is held in three consecutive years (2027, 2028, 2029) before being postponed in the fourth (2030, to make way for the 2026 and 2030 New Zealand/South Africa tours.
Australia won the series 2–0 after defeating Japan in a close match in Osaka, before winning the series in the following test in Australia, winning by 39 points.
Background
Prior to 2017, encounters between Australia and Japan were sparse. The two nations met only four times in test matches: twice during Japan's 1975 tour of Australia, and twice in the Rugby World Cup (RWC). From 2017 onward, fixtures between the sides became more regular, and domestic teams from both countries began engaging in pre-season and post-season tours, most notably the Queensland Reds, New South Wales Waratahs, Saitama Wild Knights, and Kubota Spears.
The Australia–Japan rugby relationship intensified significantly during 2023–2024, following revelations by The Sydney Morning Herald that Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones had been in discussions regarding a return to the Japan national coaching role while still in charge of Australia during the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The episode attracted significant scrutiny in the Australian media (Eddie Jones § JRFU controversy).
Schedule
Venues
Australia's venue was confirmed on 26 November 2025, following Rugby Australia's release of their 2026 schedule.
“2026 Australia–Japan rugby union test series” enters the record as football match. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Australia, Japan and rugby can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137756764. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2026, 2025, 2027 and 2028.
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