Four years after it hosted, in Bill Beaumont’s words, “probably the greatest” Rugby World Cup, Japan’s meeting with England could be a similarly pivotal moment for the country’s relationship with the oval ball. Many of the fans lucky enough to have travelled to the tournament’s 2019 incarnation will recall six weeks of often scintillating rugby, much of it provided by the hosts, and what turned out to be the last, unconstrained celebration of international sport before the arrival of Covid-19.
The first country in Asia to host the Rugby World Cup has emerged from the pandemic with its credentials as a knockout-round contender just about intact, with an eye on carrying off the kind of upset in Nice that, four years ago, redefined what it means to be a genuine rugby nation.
It is worth revisiting the immensity of the Brave Blossoms’ achievements: a win over the then world No 1 Ireland, followed by a victory over Scotland that took them to the quarter-finals for the first time – results that eclipsed even the 34-32 shock win over South Africa at the 2015 tournament, then the single biggest achievement in Japanese rugby since the game was first played in treaty ports by visiting sailors in the late 1800s.
Before the tear-stained “Brighton Miracle”, Japan’s World Cup record made for depressing reading: one victory, against Zimbabwe in 1991, two draws, both against Canada, and 21 defeats, including a 145-17 drubbing by the All Blacks in 1995.
After Eddie Jones was lured to perform his alchemy on a demoralised England team in late 2015, some predicted an early exit for Japan from its own World Cup under Jones’s replacement, the former New Zealand and Japan flanker Jamie Joseph. That did not come to pass, much like predictions that rugby’s legacy in Japan and across Asia would evaporate due to the pandemic.
Covid-19 frustrated attempts to build on the success of 2019, but Japan was not alone in having to deal with disruption to the sporting calendar, from national team fixtures – the Brave Blossoms did not play for 20 months after their World Cup exit – to school closures and the cancellation of rugby at every level.
“All the momentum that was created through the World Cup was just absolutely lost,” Joseph said on the eve of the tournament on France. “Momentum is like confidence when you’re building your team. We got a lot of confidence out of that World Cup and then, bang, we didn’t play again until June the next year. It was tough.”
But Japan has got plenty right since 2019, notably the end of the corporate-based structure and the creation in 2022 of the 25-team, three-tier League One, which proved an irresistible draw for a stream of international players seeking to advance their careers outside Europe and the southern hemisphere.
The national team’s recent World Cup showings inspired people to take up the sport, attracting more than a million new players by the end of 2019, according to World Rugby.
In the 2022-23 season, a record 745,000 tickets were sold for 168 games in Japan, while 65,000 people turned out to watch the Brave Blossoms lose narrowly to the All Blacks at the national stadium last October, beating the previous record attendance for non-World Cup matches in Japan of 57,000, set months earlier against France at the same venue.
But there have been setbacks, too, the Tokyo-based Sunwolves’ dissolution in 2020 denying a Japanese team the opportunity to play regularly against the best in the southern hemisphere.
“The establishment of League One has raised the level of Japanese rugby as a whole, but the Brave Blossoms’ World Cup cycle has been hampered by the pandemic and the lack of inclusion in hemispheric competitions,” says Dan Orlowitz, a sports writer for the Japan Times.
“While the Brave Blossoms are arguably one of Japan’s most well-known teams, rugby has a discovery problem … it’s one of those sports you’re born into rather than one you find and fall in love with. There’s potential to improve rugby’s standing in Japan, but there’s a lot of work still to do.”
Tetsuo Jimbo, who started following the national team long before Brighton, agreed that, post-2019, rugby has struggled to build on that. “The World Cup was a big success for Japan … they realised their dream of making the quarter-finals, and it also attracted a huge number of new rugby fans.”
“But in the four years since, the Japan Rugby Football Union hasn’t been able to maintain that momentum and promote the sport in the domestic market,” he says, pointing to the JRFU’s failure to turn growing interest in the sport into bigger attendances at League One matches, despite the presence of players from first-tier nations.
The unkind time difference aside – although the following day is a public holiday – events in France face plenty of competition for the attention of Japanese sports fans. The professional baseball season is reaching its climax, while football is basking in the afterglow of the men’s and women’s teams’ recent World Cup outings.
Joseph concedes that reaching the quarter-finals for a second time would be a massive challenge, but believes his side could pull off yet another surprise on the sport’s biggest stage.
“The team takes a lot of confidence from what we achieved in 2019, surprising the world by the way we played and how we went through our pool unbeaten,” he says. “It’s our challenge to do that again in 2023.”
Jimbo will be among the loyalists dragging themselves out of bed in the small hours of Monday in time for the 8pm kick-off in France. Sacrificing sleep will be worth it, he says. “I honestly think Japan have a good chance of beating England.”
But a defeat could dent the enthusiasm that grew out of the Brave Blossoms’ achievements four years ago and put the sport on an unstable footing as the JRFU hones its bid to host the 2035 tournament.
“Whether or not new fans come to rugby will depend on how Japan do against England,” Jimbo says. “If they win and virtually qualify for the second round, the Japanese media will devote a massive amount of airtime to it. But if they lose, public enthusiasm could evaporate.”
