South Africans overseas: Jasper Wiese bags a brace in Japan

Unfortunately for the D-Rocks, he was one of the only players who managed to stand out as they were beaten 49-14 by Kubota Spears - though the result did nothing to take away from a superb individual effort by Wiese.

He started at eighth man and was immense on defence, making 14 tackles as well as making a nuisance of himself at ruck time by slowing the Spears ball down whenever he got the chance.

Wiese opened the scoring for the D-Rocks around the half- hour mark, taking the ball at the back of a rolling maul from a lineout and driving over 10 metres before barging over the line.

His second score came around an hour into the game. After a series of attacking phases inside the Spears' five-metre line, scrumhalf Ren Ren Iinuma popped the ball Wiese, who used a low body angle to muscle through two tackles for a dominant forward's try.

Malcolm Marx made an appearance off the bench for the Spears, coming on just before Wiese's second try and playing around 20 minutes of the match, making three carries for around 10 metres gained.

Kwagga Smith was introduced early in the second half by the Shizuoka Blue Revs, coming on at flank and taking over the captaincy duties when he came on.

His side ultimately fell to a 60-45 defeat to the Kobe Steelers in a thrilling back-and-forth encounter that saw 17 tries scored between the two sides.

Jesse Kriel was superb on defence in the Yokohama Canon Eagles 20-14 win over the Toyota Verblitz.

The Springbok centre captained the side and made 12 crunching tackles to help hold the line, with many of them coming in the final 10 minutes as they protected their slender lead against a determined Verblitz attack.

Kriel did not get many opportunities with ball in hand but made the most of the chances he got by gaining around 40 metres from just three carries.

Lukhanyo Am showed his strength to barge through the attempted tackle of Shogo Nakano to score a late try and round out the Mitsubishi Dynaboars impressive 34-15 win over Suntory Sungoliath.

The former Sharks man marshalled the defence well all game and put in some huge hits on defence before ending the match by getting over the tryline.

In Division 2, Manie Libbok played at flyhalf for the Kintetsu Liners but was unable to help prevent them from falling to their first defeat of the season - a 30-22 loss to the Kamaishi Seawaves.

Libbok's Liners still top the table with six wins from seven and are well-placed to earn a promotional play-off spot come the end of the season, which is precisely what the Bok flyhalf was signed to help achieve.