Marx's Spears underdogs against De Allende's Wild Knights

SEMIFINAL PREVIEW: Japan Rugby League One has reached its semifinal stage in Division One, with Brodie Retallick’s Kobe Steelers facing Richie Mo’unga’s Brave Lupus Tokyo on Saturday, while Malcolm Marx and Spears Tokyo-Bay meet Damian de Allende’s Saitama Wild Knights.

Marx has been a try-scoring machine off rolling mauls for the Spears whilst De Allende has been in good form as well.

There will be another rivalry between the two coaches Robbie Deans and Frans Ludeke.

The rivalry between Wild Knights coach Deans and Spears Tokyo-Bay boss Ludeke goes back even further than that of their Brave Lupus and Steelers counterparts, with the pair first having met in the 2000s, when Deans led the Crusaders, while Ludeke was in charge at the Johannesburg-based Cats and then the Pretoria-located Bulls.

Their Super Rugby association was brief, with the Crusaders beating the Cats 43-15 in 2006, and the Bulls 54-19 two years later, but it has taken on a more substantive form since Ludeke arrived to take over at the Spears in 2016.

While Spears’ historic title in the second edition of League One – completed by their 17-15 defeat of the Wild Knights in the Final gained Ludeke a long overdue on-field win over Deans (Spears had won a Covid-related default in the 2021-22 season), the South African had lost nine games against his New Zealand colleague before that success.

Having lost two of the three in the time since, the Spears enter their latest semifinal having won just once in 12 games against the Wild Knights under Ludeke’s charge, alongside 10 defeats and this month’s 29-all draw.

Overall, the Spears have just one win to show from 18 attempts against the Wild Knights since a nationwide league began in 2003.

Ominously for the Spears, Deans has built up a phenomenal record in semifinals since he began his professional coaching career in 1997, having won 16 of 19, before going on to win the title on 11 occasions.

The remarkable run includes wins over the Spears on the penultimate weekend of each of the final Top League and maiden League One seasons.

While the second-placed Wild Knights had the weekend off to recharge after ending their regular season with a 60-17 flogging of Tokyo Sungoliath two weeks ago, Spears were given a far sterner test by the same opponent in last Sunday’s quarterfinal, with the game in the balance until the final whistle as they held out to win 20-15.

That experience should stand them in good stead for their assignment against an opponent they will feel they should have already beaten twice this season after missing late goal attempts in each of December’s two-point losses, as well as this month’s draw.

Fresh off their upset of Cinderella-side BlueRevs in last weekend’s Japan Rugby League One quarterfinals, Brodie Retallick’s Kobe Steelers will go again when they take on the defending champions, Brave Lupus Tokyo, in Saturday’s opening semifinal.

The All Black lock, who has scored nine tries in his best season yet in Japan, led his side to the competition’s penultimate weekend following a clinical performance that overturned two regular-season defeats against the fourth-placed finishers by overpowering the BlueRevs 35-20.

Having made seven changes from the week before for the quarterfinal, Kobe came through the win unscathed, with coach Dave Rennie able to name an unchanged match day 23 for this week.

Even though the last four matches between Brave Lupus and the Steelers have produced a mountain of points, with the two sharing a whopping 324 at an average of 81 per game, the forward battle could prove decisive, given the accuracy of Kobe’s set-piece wore BlueRevs down in their victory.

All Black loose forward Shannon Frizell could find himself a marked man, with the competition’s leading try-scoring forward picking up two of his 10 during last month’s whopping 73-28 win at Kobe, after having scored four during last season’s 46-39 win on Christmas Eve.

That result was one of five wins Brave Lupus have achieved from the last six games between the two sides, with the other drawn 40-all, and they enter the play-offs coming off a run of 10 wins from their last 11 matches.

Rival coaches Todd Blackadder and Dave Rennie have been in this situation before, with the latter twice getting the better of the Brave Lupus coach in Super Rugby semifinals, where the ex-Wallaby coaches’ Chiefs went on to win the title.

Blackadder has held the upper hand in Japan though, with the former Crusaders coach winning on three of the four occasions that the New Zealanders have opposed each other since Rennie’s arrival, with honours even in the fourth.

The former All Black captain ended a long wait for the maiden title of his professional coaching career last year, but the breakthrough had been coming, with Blackadder having done a super job rebuilding Brave Lupus, to the extent that he has achieved a 75 percent winning rate since taking over at Fuchu, including play-off entry in three of the four completed seasons he has been in charge.