Champion Boks in Japan's League One spotlight

SEASON PREVIEW: Many members of the top-ranked and champion Springbok team will enter the spotlight in Japan’s League One 2024-25 season.

Eight members of South Africa’s Rugby Championship-winning squad will feature when the league gets underway next week.

The fourth edition of League One kicks off next week, with the tournament opening with the clash between the Heat and Black Rams on December 21.

The match is the first of 209 in Division One’s regular season, with the competition expanded by three additional entries in Division Three.

An extra week has also been added to the play-offs in Division One, taking the length of the season to 21 weeks (including division-wide bye rounds), with the final to be played in Tokyo on Sunday, June 1.

The promotion/relegation ‘Replacement Battle’ between Divisions One and Two has been downsized and will involve just four teams playing home and away, as opposed to the previous six-team format.

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Kurt Lee Arendse had some work to do after his debut yesterday ✍️@DYNABOARS 💚#NTTLeagueOne | #GoForwardAsOne
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— JAPAN RUGBY LEAGUE ONE (@LeagueOne_EN) December 8, 2024

Division One

Despite fielding a largely unchanged playing roster following last season’s thrilling victory in the final at the National Stadium, history suggests Brave Lupus Tokyo’s task of defending the title will be even harder than it was to win the competition in the first place.

Brave Lupus became the third champions of the first three seasons of League One after edging the inaugural winners, Wild Knights, 24-20 in a dramatic finish to the championship game which was played in front of 56,486 fans at the National Stadium.

With All Black flyhalf Richie Mo’unga and teammate and back row forward Shannon Frizell leading the charge, alongside an impressive cast of local players which includes Brave Blossoms wing Jone Naikabula, second row forward Warner Dearns, hooker Mamoru Harada and veteran loose forward Michael Leitch, Brave Lupus will be hard to beat.

So too will the side they beat last time, with the Wild Knights having featured in all three of the league’s finals, beating Sungoliath first up, before narrow losses to Spears, Tokyo Bay and Brave Lupus.

Kings of the regular season, the Saitama-based outfit have won all but six of their 54 matches in the qualifying phase – in two of those they didn’t even play as they were COVID-enforced forfeits – but they have lost veteran hooker Shota Horie (retirement) and long-time Brave Blossoms flyhalf Rikiya Matsuda from last year’s line-up.

Matsuda has replaced All Black Beauden Barrett at Verblitz.

The recruitment of the 30-year-old, who scored 207 points last term, is one of several key changes at Verblitz, as Director of Rugby Steve Hansen continues to look for a winning formula in Aichi, having failed to make the play-offs in the league’s first three editions.

Last season, Verblitz finished a disappointing seventh.

A key arrival is that of Hansen’s long-time coaching partner and All Black successor Ian Foster, who as head coach, has taken up his first role since guiding New Zealand to the final at last year’s World Cup.

Veteran second row Richie Gray is another new addition; one of two Scotland internationals to have made their way to Japan, with hooker George Turner joining his former Glasgow boss Dave Rennie at Kobe.

Like Hansen, Rennie has made some key additions in a bid to build on last season’s improved showing, with the Scot joined by Yokohama’s try-scoring revelation from recent seasons, wing Inoke Burua, along with former Ulster coach Dan McFarland.

The Scottish influence has taken on a new dimension at D-Rocks as well, with former test captain Greig Laidlaw taking charge of the club he ended his playing career with.

Promoted after back-to-back Division Two championships, D-Rocks arrive armed with big-name Wallabies Israel Folau and Samu Kerevi, along with back row forward Jasper Wiese; one of eight members of South Africa’s Rugby Championship-winning squad who will play this season’s league.’

Wing Kurt Lee Arendse is another of these.

He teams with Sagamihara Dynaboars, who finished ninth last term, but were comfortably clear of the promotion/relegation series after winning six matches.

In the 2023-24 season, the Kanagawa-based club had won just four times.

Arendse’s fellow hot-stepping Springbok, Cheslin Kolbe, will be looking to bring his test form – which dazzled the crowd at Twickenham last month – to Japan after having been restricted to 11 matches on debut for Sungoliath last season.

With each of Kolbe, All Black Sam Cane and Wallaby Sean McMahon dogged by injury, there was plenty of merit in last term’s semi-final appearance by Sungoliath, but Kosei Ono – part of the Brave Blossoms team which beat South Africa at the 2015 World Cup – will aspire for more as he suits up for his maiden season as a head coach.

While pre-season form is not always a reliable guide, Ono has started well, with Sungoliath unbeaten.

Fellow semifinalists Yokohama Canon Eagles have experienced Springbok scrumhalf Faf de Klerk back in harness, after he missed much of this year’s league with injury, while centre Jesse Kriel has also reported ready to go, following an outstanding international campaign where he helped the Springboks reinforce their number one world ranking.

Kwagga Smith, who was also scrubbed for much of last season due to injury, is back and will again skipper Blue Revs, with former All Black Charles Piutau alongside as the pair seek to lift the competition’s serial heartbreakers, who have lost 14 matches by 10 points or less since League One began.

Despite the departure of Wales fullback Liam Williams, the return of hooker Malcolm Marx, after he missed the Spears’ unsuccessful title defence due to a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, will have given everybody associated with the Bay club an extra spring in their step: understandable given the Springboks’ record of 25 tries from 29 appearances in the orange jersey.

Former Harlequins coach Tabai Matson and All Black scrumhalf TJ Perenara are the notable newcomers at Black Rams Tokyo, the pair tasked with pushing the club up the table after they flirted with relegation last term.

Heat had a similar experience, and former Italy coach Kieran Crowley will be hoping to have Los Pumas centurion Pablo Matera available for a full campaign, after the 31-year missed most of last term, arriving just in time to score four tries against Shuttles Aichi in the first leg to help his side survive in The Replacement Battle.

This is what it’s all about 🙌

Kazuki Himeno takes his chance to talk to Kwagga Smith about his favourite stars at yesterdays pre-season media conference 🔥@toyotaverblitz @teikyo_8 @bluerevs @SmithKwagga #NTTLeagueOne | #GoForwardAsOne
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— JAPAN RUGBY LEAGUE ONE (@LeagueOne_EN) December 10, 2024

Division Two

The return of Hanazono Liners, after they lost a Replacement Battle against D-Rocks, completes the puzzle in Division Two, with the demoted side having added All Black back row forward Akira Ioane and Exeter Chiefs midfielder Tom Hendrickson to a roster that still includes the veteran Wallaby pair, flyhalf Quade Cooper and scrumhalf Will Genia.

The 34-year-old Cooper, who was the Player of the Year during Hanazono’s promotion-winning campaign three seasons ago, will again be central to his side’s hopes of ‘escaping’ an expanded eight-team second tier which has been bolstered by the return of Wallaby Rory Arnold’s Hino Red Dolphins along with All Black and Samoa flyhalf Lima Sopoaga’s Blue Sharks.

It won’t be easy for the promoted sides, with Green Rockets Tokatsu and Shuttles Aichi still smarting following last season’s end-of-season failure, the former especially, after a spectacular late-season collapse.

Wayne Pivac’s men dropped their last five, which included an inglorious end following a 55-0 hammering by the Black Rams in the second leg of The Replacement Battle.

The former Wales coach has added Rhys Patchell to the roster, renewing his association with the Scarlets and test flyhalf, while much will also be expected of former Brave Blossoms fullback Lemeki Lomano Lava, who has returned to the club where he made his name, after a brief stint with the Heat.

Kyushu Electric Power Kyuden Voltex, Japan Steel Kamaishi Seawaves and Red Hurricanes Osaka make up the grade, with the latter having reinforced their roster with the signings of Bath second row forward Elliott Stooke and former Munster back row forward Jack O’Sullivan.

Malcom Marx is back in Japan and gearing up for another season with @Kubota_Spears 🔥🦄#NTTLeagueOne | #WelcomeToRugby
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— JAPAN RUGBY LEAGUE ONE (@LeagueOne_EN) December 12, 2024

Division Three

The arrival of Fukuoka, Toda and Rugguts brings intrigue to Division Three, with the newcomers making up half of the remodelled section, joining Hiroshima, their cross-town rivals Red Regulions, as well as Gush Akishima.

Veteran Wales second row forward Cory Hill and Maori All Blacks and Green Rockets back row Whetukamokamo Douglas will both strip for the Rugguts, who also have the well-travelled Super Rugby performers TJ Faine and Chase Tiatia on their books.

This will make them the team to beat.

Look who’s back 👀

Jesse Kriel has returned to Japan and is about to head into his fifth season with @Canon_Eagles #NTTLeagueOne | #WelcomeToRugby
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— JAPAN RUGBY LEAGUE ONE (@LeagueOne_EN) December 11, 2024