Springboks and All Blacks stars taking Japan Rugby League One to next level

Lawrence Nolan
Kwagga Smith in action for Shitzuoka BlueRevs.

Kwagga Smith in action for Shitzuoka BlueRevs.

It has become a place for players to go and pick up a little pension top-up fund at the end of World Cup cycles, or so it seems, but the quality on offer in the Japan Rugby League One belies its reputation as the Bournemouth of leagues.

Despite the seemingly large numbers of established and celebrated internationals such as Liam Williams and Damian de Allende heading East, the actual rules for international players on the pitch are reasonably stringent.

Teams can have a maximum of three Category C players – meaning players capped for other national teams – in their matchday squad of 23. After that, there are Category B players, who may hail from overseas but are – and note the wording here – expected to be eligible for the Japan national team. And there are Category A players, who are eligible for the national team and of whom there must be 11 on the pitch and 17 in the matchday squad.

Bean-counters among you will thus note, a team can have three Cat C and one Cat B players on the pitch and three Cat C and three Cat B players in the matchday squad, while substitutions occasionally need careful monitoring.

Two teams have a 100 per cent record after three weeks. One is Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo, who beat Kobelco Kobe Steelers 46-39 in Kobe in an enthralling match. The Brave Lupus have Shannon Frizell, Seta Tamanivalu and Richie Mo’unga as their Cat C players and made full use of both All Blacks especially, with Frizell scoring four tries and Mo’unga notching 16 points from the tee.

The Steelers are not short of a little All Black stardust themselves, with Brodie Retallick, Ngani Laumape and Ardie Savea as their Cat C players and with Bryn Gatland conducting things from 10, but once centre Rob Thompson had put the Brave Lupus 24-10 ahead in the first half with a well-taken try, the Steelers were always playing a game of catch-up they’d never quite be good enough to win.

De Allende’s Wild Knights won

But Saitama Wild Knights lead the way into 2024 in Division One after their third bonus-point victory out of three in the last weekend of action in the year, this one a 44-17 drubbing of Black Rams Tokyo.

The Wild Knights, featuring World Cup winner De Allende and guided from fly-half by Japan international fly-half Rikiya Matsuda, had both the win and the bonus sewn up by half-time, after hooker Atsushi Sakate had finished off two driving mauls and left wing Ryuji Noguchi also dotted down for a brace of tries and a 25-3 half-time lead.

There were further tries for wing Tomoki Osada, hooker Shota Horie and scrum-half Keisuke Ochida, with De Allende popping up to convert the last, while former Reds full-back Isaac Lucas (category B, still only 24 years old, not that far away from being Japan eligible) scored a late consolation try for the visitors.

The slip by the Steelers allowed Tokyo Sungoliath, featuring Springboks star Cheslin Kolbe on the wing and Sam Cane in the slightly unusual position of number eight (and who also left the fray injured after half an hour) to leapfrog the Steelers into third place with a 34-16 win over Mie Honda Heat.

Kolbe did not score – surprising, considering his team crossed the line six times – but did put in a fine showing. It was a disappointing day for the Heat, for whom Franco Mostert was the only Cat C player on show and who now lie bottom of the table, pointless after three matches.

Toyota Verblitz ended the 100 per cent win record of the magnificently-named Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars with a 54-40 win featuring 14 tries in all and not a single penalty. Verblitz were steered to win by the All Blacks half-back pairing of Aaron Smith and Beauden Barrett, while the Dynaboars’ Cat C players were the less-feted pair of Jackson Hemopo and Curtis Rona. It was a little more one-sided than the score suggests; the Verblitz were 54-28 up with 10 minutes to play and took their foot off the gas, but some of the tries were outstanding.

Faf de Klerk v Will Genia

Yokohama Canon Eagles kept pace with the top group after a 66-26 thrashing of Hanazono Kintetsu Liners. Faf de Klerk of the Eagles was opposite Will Genia of the Liners in this one, while Jesse Kriel also started for the Eagles, but the win was sealed with a quick-fire double from hooker Shunta Nakamura with almost his first touches of the game early in the second half, creating a 40-19 lead from which the Liners never looked like coming back.

Finally, Kubota Spears, featuring Dane Coles, Williams and Bernard Foley, fell to a narrow 23-19 defeat against Shitzuoka BlueRevs, led by the irrepressible Kwagga Smith from openside. The win was sealed in the final minute with a try from 22-year-old fly-half Kenta Iamura, who had an excellent game. Both teams now have one win from three and are in the bottom half of the table.

The coming weekend sees Black Rams Tokyo face the Liners as both strive to grab a belated first win of the season. The Wild Knights and the Brave Lupus both have winnable home matches, against Toyota Verblitz and Kubota Spears respectively, to maintain their 100 per cent records. Tokyo Sungoliath face the Steelers, with both aiming to keep in touch with the top two, as do the Dynaboars and the Canon Eagles, while Honda Heat host the BlueRevs as their quest for a first win of the season continues.

READ MORE: All Blacks great Aaron Smith thankful ‘not to be getting smashed’ by Springboks powerhouse anymore

Australia