Japan's Brave Blossoms celebrate a try by Ayumu Goromaru on their way to victory against the Springboks at the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Photo / Onside Images
When Japan famously beat the Springboks at the 2015 World Cup, a nation watched and celebrated.
The Cherry Blossoms pulled off the greatest shock in tournament history by winning their opening pool game and, while it wasn’t enough to propel them to the knockout rounds, it was enough to fundamentally change the profile of rugby in Japan.
The sport has a long history, beginning more than 100 years ago with Keio University importing it from Europe in search of a game that fostered unity and teamwork.
The values of togetherness, conquering adversity and finding the answers to complex problems suited the Japanese view of using sport as a tool to build character and real-life skills.
But while the game grew strong within the tertiary education sector, it never managed to build universal appeal.
“In 2015, our victory against South Africa changed a lot,” says Hajime Shoji, chief operating officer of Japan’s professional club competition, League One. “Before that, people were supporting domestic rugby. However, every time Japan played a tier one team we suffered a big loss.
“People were invested in the domestic game, however, that was it. Beating South Africa changed a lot of minds about whether Japan could win against good teams and people started to watch more international rugby.”
It would be four years, later, when Japan hosted the 2019 Rugby World Cup, that the game would take a quantum leap in popularity.
The World Cup is the third-largest sports tournament by audience and its scale was enough to ensure that every part of the country hosted games. More significantly, it attracted about 300,000 foreign visitors.
And once a mass audience got a taste for the game, they fell in love with it, helped enormously by the performance of the home team, who defied the odds to beat both Ireland and Scotland and make the quarter-finals.
Kiyoto Inoue, general manager of the Yokohama Canon Eagles and a long-term rugby administrator, says it’s almost impossible to contextualise just what the 2019 World Cup did for rugby in Japan.
“The sport went boom in Japan,” he says. “While rugby had historically been a popular sport, the last 10 or 20 years we had struggled. The number of players was getting smaller.
“When I was at primary school, I clearly remember watching games where there were 40,000-45,000 at club games.
“Before 2019, it was much less – nothing like that. But then, after the World Cup, everything changed.”
The sport sparked something in the imagination of the wider Japanese public, to whom its values and culture of respect, teamwork and unity really appealed.
But what particularly sold the game was its diversity.
“People got to know rugby,” Inoue says. “And they started to understand the beauty of rugby, the mentality of its diversity – played by 15 players, some very tall, some small, some wide.
“It fits the Japanese psyche, and diversity is becoming key in Japan, and rugby brought it not only in body shapes but in backgrounds as well and also because a lot of players playing for Japan came from Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand … all around the world.”
Former All Blacks captain Todd Blackadder began coaching the Toshiba Brave Lupus club in 2019. In his first year, the average home crowd for Toshiba was not even 5000. By the time the 2020 season kicked off, everything changed.
“After the World Cup, there was so much support for rugby and Japan was rugby-mad.
“What that tournament did for the game out here was phenomenal and they were feeling the effects of that and investing in rugby.”
When Toyota played Panasonic in the first game of 2020, 37,000 people turned up.
This was unheard of even for two big clubs and it illustrated that rugby was becoming more popular in a country where baseball and football dominate.
But there was a second, significant impact of hosting the World Cup in Japan – it showcased the country to many of the game’s biggest names.
And there were two distinct factors that international players picked up on. The first was that they fell in love with the country itself.
The lifestyle is relaxed. The infrastructure is world-class. The people are accommodating and the media scrutiny on the players is virtually non-existent.
For current All Black TJ Perenara, who played for Red Docomo in 2021 and has now signed for Black Rams Tokyo, the cultural similarities between Japan and te ao Māori caught his attention.
He played there with the All Blacks but says it was the seven weeks he spent in Japan during the World Cup that gave him his best appreciation of the country.
“My first tour was in 2013 and I played a couple of times here in Super Rugby, but the longest stretch of time I had here was in 2019 and the World Cup.
“I really enjoyed the people, how welcoming they were and how similar it is to the Māori culture. That was something I really enjoyed.”
The other factor that opened many players’ eyes in 2019 was the quality of rugby.
If the 2015 tournament had persuaded the Japanese public there was potential within its nation, the performance of the Brave Blossoms at the 2019 tournament provided definitive evidence to everyone else.
There may have previously been some scepticism about Japan’s rugby pedigree, with the best international players fearful they wouldn’t encounter quality coaching or be enabled to grow their skills if they joined Japanese clubs.
“I am in charge of recruitment,” says Inoue. “Before 2019, to be honest, not many players came from Europe to Japan. Some came from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Most of the UK players and the French players never wanted to come.
“But after 2019, the assessment of Japan from global markets is getting higher. Players from Europe started to show more interest in coming to Japan.
“They used to show some interest but never seriously considered it. I think attitudes have changed again since the 2023 World Cup because many of the international players at that tournament play for Japanese clubs.”
The list of big names who signed to play in Japan in 2020 was incredible. It included former All Blacks captain Kieran Read and his teammates Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick, along with the likes of World Cup-winning Springboks Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel.
The coaches flooded in, too, with Sir Steve Hansen arriving at Toyota. Rugby in Japan was threatening to take off in a previously unimaginable way.
“The word is out about the quality of lifestyle here,” says Robbie Deans, the former Crusaders and Wallabies coach who has been with Panasonic since 2014 and has turned the club into one of the real powerhouses of Japanese rugby.
“It is a good lifestyle and it has always been a good positive game. So it has gone from the international players at the end of their career to mid-career and 30 per cent of the Springboks’ World Cup-winning team play here in Japan.
“We have also got a lot of international coaches with international experience, so that is attractive to players.”
The past three years have effectively been focused on wresting back the momentum that was built in 2019 and then impacted by the pandemic.
Blackadder says crowd sizes are steadily climbing at Toshiba, no doubt helped this year by the arrival of former All Blacks Richie Mo’unga and Shannon Frizell.
“After two seasons, our home attendance climbed to 8000 and now it is 12,000-plus, so it is on the increase and making good progress. The big games are really well supported and I can only see it growing.”
Shoji confirms there has been overall growth in the league since 2022 and the removal of all Covid restrictions, suggesting Japan’s professional football league had about 10 million in total crowds, baseball had about 30m, basketball 5m and rugby about 1.5m.
By way of comparison, Super Rugby in New Zealand had a total of 644,000 paying fans going through stadiums this year.
“It’s good growth but, compared with the other sports, it’s a way behind. But then we play fewer games,” says Shoji.
The big difference between Japanese fans and New Zealanders, says Blackadder, is that they may have a preferred club but they won’t restrict themselves to watching only that team.
“I have found the people have a love of rugby. When you meet them and talk about rugby, they just love it.
“They are fanatical, and the difference between here and New Zealand is that they are rugby fans.
“We really just get hooked into our team – your Crusaders or Blues or All Blacks who come from your region. It is still parochial.
“But here we can have Toshiba fans who still go to a Suntory game or go watch three games on the weekend because they are rugby fans. After the final this year, 56,000 people stayed for an hour after the game.
“That was just incredible. In New Zealand, if your team lost, you would be gone but here the whole place stayed.”
All Blacks vs Japan, Saturday 6.50pm. Live commentary on Newstalk ZB, Gold Sport and iHeartRadio. Live match blog at nzherald.co.nz
Gregor Paul travelled to Japan with the help of a grant from the Asia NZ Foundation.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
The missing rugby jersey was found after a two-year search.