Japan: Team profile - Rugby World Cup 2011
The Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) has qualified to appear in the Rugby World Cup (RWC) 2011 and has named its provisional squad for this year’s event. They will be places in pool A of the event with hosts New Zealand, France, Tonga and Canada.
The JRFU was established in 1926 and rugby as a game can be traced back to the late 19th century. Japans first match at the international level was played against the Canadian rugby union in 1932. Here, the Japanese team won by a close margin
of 9-8.
Japan’s international rugby team is known as the Cherry Blossoms but the name has just been changed to the Brave Blossoms. Japan’s Blossoms have participated in several competitions including the Rugby World Cup (RWC) since 1987. The Braves have appeared
in all the RWCs since 1987 but have not yet won the honour of taking home the Webb Elis Cup. The best successes they have achieved in the RWC games was once in 1991, where they won against Zimbabwe by 52-8 and the second time when they had a tie with Canada
in RWC 2007. A similar victory aside from the RWC games was previously seen in 1989, where Japan won against Scotland by a score of 28-24.
However, Japan’s strength is playing under the Asian Rugby Football Union and the Asian teams. The Blossoms are a regular part of the Asian games like the International Rugby Board (IRB)’s Pacific Nations Cup and the HSBC Asian Five Nations (A5N).
Japan played and lost the 2006 Pacific Nations Cup but they helped their standing by tying with Canada in the RWC 2007. The 2008 season saw good performances as they achieved their first A5N cup in May 2008. This win was much more significant if it is kept
in mind that the Brave Blossoms ended up winning all of their tournament matches.
Much more recently, Japan has been seen in the IRB Pacific Nations Cup of 2011. Here, the Blossoms showed tremendous potential and won the Cup for the first time, defeating Fiji and Tonga. This particular cup was their first win since joining up for playing
the Cup five years ago.
This victory helped pave their way to the RWC 2011. In fact the JRFU has announced the provisional squad that will play for the Brave Blossoms. The team will be under the leadership of John Kirwan as the coach and has a 41 player squad with 22 forwards and
19 backs. The team will be led by Takashi Kikutani as captain. Kikutani joined the JRFU in 2005 and plays at the position of flanker with the teams forwards.
Other flankers on the team are Ryukoliniasi Holani, Toetuu Taufa, Tadasuke Nishihara, Michael Leitch and Itaru Taniguchi. The Blossoms prop positions are occupied by Nozomu Fujita, Naoki Kawamata, Hisateru Hirashima, Hiroshi Yamashita, Tateo Kanai and Kensuke
Hatakeyam.
Hookers for the Brave Blossoms are Shota Horie, Takeshi Kizu, Yusuke Aoki and Hiroki Yuhara. While, players Toshizumi Kitagawa, Justin Ives, Yuji Kitagawa, Hitoshi Ono, Luke Thompson and Shinya Makabe play the locks position in the squad.
The scrum-halves include the players Atsushi Hiwasa, Koji Wada, Fumiaki Tanaka and Ippei Asada. The position of centre is occupied by Ryan Nicholas, Alisi Tupuailai, Yuta Imamura, Koji Taira and Taihei Ueda. On the other hand the fly-halves for the Blossoms
are James Arlidge, Ryohei Yamanaka and Shaun Webb. Hirotoki Onozawa, Akihito Yamada, Kosuke Endo and Takeshisa Usuzuki are the wings of the Braves. Finally, the squad’s fullbacks are Atsushi Tanabe, Go Aruga and Bryce Robins.
Japan is currently number 13 on the IRB World Ranking as of July 18. The Brave Blossoms coach Kirwan and their captain Kikutani entered the RWC race by beating Hong Kong in the HSBC A5N 2010. The JRFU is also looking forward to hosting the Rugby World Cup
of 2019.
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