Kwagga and Manie on big missions in Japan
PREVIEW ROUND FOUR: The BlueRevs might have won just once in the opening three rounds, but the side led by Springbok Kwagga Smith is not to be underrated.
Their next opponent, the Wild Knights, certainly won’t be.
The Springbok back row forward led the BlueRevs to an historic 44-25 win over the Wild Knights at Kumagaya in 2023, when the BlueRevs became the first visitors to successfully storm the previously impregnable fortress in League One, while also ending the Wild Knights’ remarkable 47-game post-pandemic on-field unbeaten sequence at all venues.
Such has been the Wild Knights’ dominance of the regular season in the five years since League One began, they have lost just three matches, but the BlueRevs have inflicted two of them, also ending their rivals 10-match unbeaten start to last season when they won 22-17.
The defeat triggered such a dramatic collapse in the Wild Knights season that they were thwarted in four of their remaining nine matches – including twice in the play-offs – to end in a disappointing fourth.
The BlueRevs finished their remarkable campaign having gathered 14 wins – the same number as Saturday’s rivals – although they enter round four having already suffered half the number of defeats that they sustained in the entirety of the last regular season.
While the match at Wild Knights takes center stage, the day also offers up a contest of major importance for Sungoliath, who need to park the mental scars of their demolition by the Spears as they take on Ardie Savea’s Kobe Steelers.
Narrowly edged by the Spears on opening day, Kobe sit third, having won both matches since, with the explosive All Black back row forward at the forefront of their 49-29 crushing of Verblitz last time.
Steve Hansen and Ian Foster’s Verblitz, who have lost twice since winning on opening day, face a potentially awkward appointment with a Black Rams outfit coming off their first win of the season, and who trounced Verblitz 37-7 when they last met.
While the absence of Aaron Smith from the Verblitz line-up has robbed the game of what would have been just the third head-to-head clash between Smith and his long-time teammate TJ Perenara (Black Rams) in Japan, another All Black scrumhalf will take his maiden bow in League One, with 18-cap Brad Weber set to be introduced off the Dynaboars bench against Brave Lupus.
After their galling 46-0 humbling by the Wild Knights on opening day, the champions have gotten into the groove, and they represent another difficult assignment for the Dynaboars after they were outclassed 33-3 by Wild Knights.
The Dynaboars do have one win on the board, and that came against the Yokohama Canon Eagles, who are still winless under new coach Leon MacDonald as they look to get off the ground at their fourth attempt against Graham Rowntree’s buoyant D-Rocks.
D-Rocks, who only won three matches in the whole of the last regular season, will tie that figure if they win a game they will be favorites for following their shock 34-21 win over BlueRevs.
Sunday’s only match in Division One pits the unbeaten Spears against Heat, who may be fearing the worst after Kubota ran up 79 points in their remarkable performance against Sungoliath.
Whilst Heat haven’t been that bad in their three defeats to date, last season’s finalists represent a big step up in opposition, even though Heat were more than competitive in their two meetings last term, losing the first of those by just five points.
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Division Two sees Manie Libbok and Akira Ioane’s Hanazono Kintetsu Liners bidding to extend their lead at the top of the table against second-from-bottom Red Dolphins, while Greg Cooper’s Green Rockets will have a point to prove against Shuttles Aichi, who narrowly pipped them for the section title last year.
The derby between reigning section champions Hiroshima and Red Regulions headlines Division Three with the form book irrelevant given the currently winless Red Regulions have taken a match off their city stablemates in each of the last two seasons.
