The exhibition match was played in a festival spirit with multiple interchanges in front of a vocal Tokyo crowd at Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium.
Three players made their debut - backrower Lachlan Swinton, prop Cody Walker and centre Will McDonnell, the latter two coming off the bench.
The match rounds off a week that featured coaching clinics at local schools Akasaka Elementary, Konan Elementary and the Minato Rugby Academy, and visits to the Australian Embassy, the Commissioner of Japan Sports Agency and the Tokyo Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
NSW Waratahs and NSW Rugby CEO Andrew Hore explains the significance of such visits.
“We see a massive amount of opportunity here in Japan from both a high-performance and commercial perspective,” said Hore.
“It’s an acknowledgement of NSW Rugby and NSW Waratahs as a sporting brand in their country, giving credibility to the brand in the fact that we have been accepted to have an audience with the commissioner.”
“This opens the door for us in terms of strengthening our ties with other businesses here in Japan.
“Tying in with our vision and strategy for the future, we are looking to diversify our revenue streams which will then enable us to generate the money to support all levels of the game in New South Wales.
Watch: Full Match re-cap right this way
Throughout the week the NSW Waratahs squad and coaching staff experienced different high performance cultures, training alongside Japanese Top League side Suntory Sungoliath in an opposed session that headlined a week of rigorous training.
NSW Waratahs Head Coach Daryl Gibson said: “I want to congratulate the NEC Green Rockets on the game today. They were the better team and they put us under a lot of pressure and we made a lot of mistakes.
“For us it was a wonderful experience for our younger players to come up and play against an international team and be involved in a festival that was a wonderful event put on by Minato.
“(This game) was a vital part of our season because of the three-week Super Rugby break this month. We saw this as an excellent opportunity to play some rugby and have a good week of training. We achieved that and gave our younger players a lot of game time and they’ll take a good lesson from today around executing their skills and to become an aspiring player, they’re going to have to be a lot better.”
Match day captain Mack Mason said: “We put them under pressure early on in the match and credit to them, they fought back. Late in that second half we came through with points but it wasn’t enough to get the result in the end.”
NSW Waratahs fullback Bryce Hegarty opened the day’s scoring, dotting over for a try in the second minute as a result of consistent attacking phase play.
The home team had a rebuttal just minutes later with a penalty conversion to close the gap to 5-3.
NSW hooker Hugh Roach was rewarded for his bruising first half performance, beating the last defender to extend the lead to 12-3 after 17 minutes.
Fast forward five minutes and it was scrumhalf Jake Gordon’s turn, who scored his first of the day to finish of a quick-tap.
As NSW took a 19-3 lead, the home team answered with two late tries to reduce the deficit to 19-15 at the break.
NEC worked hard to take a 29-19 lead in the 55th minute after scoring two tries in the first 15 minutes of the second half.
With 15 left on the clock, Gordon scored his second try to close the gap to 29-26 following a successful conversion from skipper Mack Mason.
The NSW Waratahs fought hard for possession and territory but were denied the chance of glory after the home team held on to ball to see out the match.
The NSW Waratahs return to Sydney to prepare for the remaining three rounds of Vodafone Super Rugby competition featuring two consecutive home games against Australian conference contenders, the Sunwolves and Brumbies.
Scores:
NEC Green Rockets 29
NSW Waratahs 26
Tries: B Hegarty, H Roach, J Gordon 2
Conversions: M Mason 3
Yellow Cards: T Staniforth
