Tri Nations
Japan to host Bledisloe Test?
Scrum.com
February 22, 2009
All Blacks captain Richie McCaw holds the Bledisloe Cup aloft after winning the Bledisloe Cup match between the Australian Wallabies and the New Zealand All Blacks at Hong Kong Stadium in Hong Kong, China on November 1, 2008.
Richie McCaw lifts the 2008 Bledisloe Cup in Hong Kong © Getty Images
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The All Blacks and Wallabies are set to take a Bledisloe Cup Test on tour again this season, but the likely destination will be Japan and not the United States as originally speculated.

Following on from the success of their Bledisloe Cup meeting in Hong Kong last November, an event that netted the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) something in the region of NZ$4 million, the respective unions appear to have settled on Tokyo for this season's excursion.

"Denver won't happen this year. The NZRU were keen, so were USA Rugby and the International Rugby Board. Funding was in place but O'Neill [John, ARU chief executive] preferred Tokyo," USA Rugby boss Kevin Roberts told Auckland's Sunday News.

O'Neill has apparently secured greater financial backing from Tokyo than what had been tabled in Denver, meaning that the All Blacks and Wallabies will likely be packing down in Tokyo's neon glow at the end of the season.

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