Masahiko Toyoyama scored a try three minutes from time as Japan rallied to beat South Korea 27-19 in the opening game of the Asian Tri-Nations rugby competition on Sunday, celebrating new head coach Shogo Mukai's first test with a win.
Japan winger Toru Kuwabara scored 17 points with his boot.
In the new three-nation round-robin tournament, South Korea will host Taiwan next Sunday in Seoul and Japan will visit Taiwan on May 27. Japan, which improved its record against South Korea to 10-0-5, had looked in danger of losing to its archrival before a crowd of 12,000 at Tokyo's Chichibunomiya Stadium.
Japan, featuring six national team debutants in its starting lineup and another two on the bench, was erratic from the outset, repeatedly knocking-on and fumbling at its lineouts.
The Korean side, which played without six regular players due to injury, frustrated Japan with its agility and hard tackles. South Korea winger Kim Hyung Ki scored his team's second try in the 63rd minute to cut Japan's lead to 17-16.
Four minutes from time, Kim Jae Sung converted his second penalty of the day to put the South Korean team ahead 19-17.
But a minute later, Japan launched an attack from a lineout and tight-head prop Toyoyama received a pass from scrum-half Shinichi Tsukita to dive over the line and take the lead 22-19. Kurihara made the conversion and then added a 30-meter penalty goal to wrap up the game.
"Our players played with precision at the very end of the game, which brought us the win," said Mukai, who took over the helm from Seiji Hirao at the end of last year.
"But the only good thing about today's game is that we won it. Other than that, I've seen so many things that we have to work on," he added.