Marx's Spears poised for top finish over De Allende's Wild Knights

ROUND 18 PREVIEW: Is this the Grand Final in waiting? When new All Black coach Dave Rennie takes his Kobe Steelers to Spears Edoriku Field on Sunday, the league leaders will have a simple objective: win and earn two weekends off before their first play-off game.

Fail, as all previous 25 visitors that Spears have entertained at their western Tokyo lair have, and Kobe could miss out on the top two, adding an extra game to their schedule if they are to return the title to Kansai for the first time since 2018.

Malcolm Marx’s Spears, who are level with Damian de Allende’s Wild Knights, both trailing Kobe by two points, have an equally simple equation: win, and the ‘prize’ of a first-round bye in the finals is theirs.

This sets up an intriguing final day contest, and one that could have huge implications for the destination of the title, as two of the league’s most consistent and star-studded line-ups go head-to-head.

That the game will be the last at home for several of Spears’ ‘long-termers’, including Wallaby flyhalf Bernard Foley and South African-born Brave Blossoms backrower Pieter ‘Lappies’ Labuschagne, will only add to the significance of the occasion.

Steelers skipper Brodie Retallick could also be in line for an historic afternoon: the big man is just one try short of the League One record for tries in a season, the 18 scored two years ago by Sungoliath winger Seiya Ozaki.

It might all be on at Edogawa, but the stakes will be no less high for former league leaders Wild Knights, 24 hours earlier, when they host a Brave Lupus outfit they whacked 46-0 on the opening day of the season, with a top two finish on the line.

That the Wild Knights failed to take their chance to nail it last week during their shock loss to the bottom-placed D-Rocks will have been a source of frustration for coach Atsushi Kanazawa, although the performance, or lack of, may have helped in some of his decision-making around selection for the weeks ahead.

Brave Lupus, who will be without All Black flyhalf Richie Mo’unga, will just be happy not to have a finals place resting on the outcome, given the Wild Knights have lost just once at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium in the League One era and are sure to be hurting after last week’s reverse.

While the outcome will have no bearing on their participation in the play-offs, the visitors can still improve their ranking, which could come in handy as far as the draw for the first weekend of the finals is concerned, with one of Kobe, Wild Knights or Spears awaiting the sixth-placed finisher.

Fourth-placed Tokyo Sungoliath and BlackRams Tokyo in fifth will also have the draw on their minds as they meet on Sunday, with a strong possibility that they could reconvene for another go against each other in two weeks when the elimination matches start.

With Sungoliath having finally broken their historic five-game losing run with an impressive performance at Verblitz, while BlackRams were suffering their worst defeat of the season in a lifeless display against Spears at Fukushima, an outcome is difficult to predict.

Sungoliath’s 29-15 win in the corresponding tussle on the opening day provides no clue, as TJ Perenara’s BlackRams have gone on to enjoy their most successful season since League One was inaugurated, even winning one match more than their rivals, despite trailing by three on the championship standings.

Beyond the play-offs’ permutations, signing off with a flourish will be the goal for the remaining six sides, with plenty of meaning for Verblitz given their visit to Suzuka Gardens is the last assignment for Director of Rugby Steve Hansen, who is finishing up after six years of service.

The former All Black boss joined Verblitz after New Zealand bowed out of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan at the semifinal stage, presiding over some mixed times at Aichi, where flickers of hope were coupled with times of disappointment.

This has been encapsulated by the current campaign, when Verblitz overcame a slow start to piece together five wins on the bounce, which drove them into play-offs calculations before last weekend’s defeat by Sungoliath punctured those hopes.

In Mie Heat, they face an opponent nursing similar bruises after they too lost out on the play-offs last weekend, but Kieran Crowley’s men won’t lack in motivation; they won’t want to end what has been a much-improved campaign with a fourth straight defeat.

In winning six games, Heat has already bettered by one the number achieved across their first two seasons in the section after winning promotion from Division Two.

BlueRevs find themselves back in the ranks as well after 14 wins last term promoted them into top company, but while a seventh-placed finish would be disappointing after the season started with such high hopes, it would still represent the club’s second-best finish of the League One era, after each of the first three seasons saw the side home in eighth.

Having been last for the first six weeks of the season, a win at Shizuoka could also lift Yokohama Eagles as high as seventh, which would represent a solid body of work by first-season coach Leon MacDonald, who arrived midway through what became a club record run of 10 straight defeats.

That the former All Black rebuilt from that point so quickly suggests good times ahead, even though they are looking at a change at scrumhalf as Springbok star Faf de Klerk returns to South Africa with the Cheetahs, after 41 appearances across his five seasons in League One.

Although both have more important business ahead later in the month, Replacement Battle candidates Dynaboars and D-Rocks will be looking to fine-tune when they meet to sort out the finishing order for the promotion/relegation series draw.

While D-Rocks will have been buoyed by ending a horror 12-match losing run in such remarkable fashion against the Wild Knights, Glen Delaney and the Sagamihara brains trust will be desperate to turn their ailing side’s form around, with the five subsequent defeats mystifying following their historic back-to-back wins over Sungoliath.

At that point, eclipsing the club’s best League One return of six regular-season wins seemed possible.

Falling two short of that, they will be desperate now to finish with six wins in total, although victory over D-Rocks should help their confidence levels, while also avoiding drawing the yet-to-be-determined Division Two champions as they enter the relegation jeopardy.