Panasonic Wild Knights made it a perfect eight-from-eight in the Japan Rugby Top League on Saturday as they thrashed Kobe Kobelco Steelers 56-7 at Expo '70 Stadium.

Robbie Deans' side exposed Kobe's frailty at the back to score seven tries, four of the efforts coming from well-placed kicks over the Steelers' defensive line and even better chases.

The victory sees Panasonic top the White Conference with a perfect 40 points, 10 more than Yamaha Jubilo, who beat NTT Communications Shining Arcs 36-10.

Kobe, who have lost two on the trot after winning their first six games, are second in the Red Conference with 28 points, six behind Suntory Sungoliath who play Toyota Verblitz on Sunday.

Meanwhile at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium -- one of the venues for the 2019 Rugby World Cup -- in the curtain-raiser for the Yamaha-NTT Comms game, Toyota Industries Shuttles picked up their first win of the season as they hammered Coca-Cola Red Sparks 47-7.

However, just 1,496 were in the stadium which has a capacity of 50,889, a worrying sign for World Cup organizers.

Cola's defeat leaves them as the only winless team in the league this season, and they lie stranded at the bottom of the White Conference with two points, five less than the sixth-placed Shuttles.

This season the league has been split into two conferences.

Teams play the seven other sides in their conference plus six from the other group to determine the rankings for the end of season playoffs, with the top four sides competing for the league title, which doubles as the All-Japan Championship.

Panasonic fullback Keisuke Moriya opened the scoring in Osaka in the seventh minute following a length-of-the-field move that started with a clever kick from Fumiaki Tanaka and a good follow-up from Akihito Yamada.

Berrick Barnes added the extras and then kicked a penalty after Yoshikazu Ohashi was sent to the sin bin for cynically killing a move that almost saw Panasonic add another length-of-the-field try.

Another clever kick -- this time from Shota Horie -- put Kenki Fukuoka over for the second try as the Wild Knights made the most of their numerical advantage to make it 17 points in as many minutes.

Two further penalties from Barnes saw the teams turn around with Panasonic leading 23-0.

The second half was just six minutes old when Rikiya Matsuda grabbed Panasonic's third try, which like the first two came from a chip ahead this time by Fukuoka.

In keeping with the theme of the afternoon, Barnes (kick) and Fukuoka (chase) combined to put Kotaro Yatabe away in the 55th minute before Takuya Yamasawa, Ben Gunter and Yamada brought up the half-century.

Ryohei Yamanaka crossed for a very late consolation effort for the Steelers.