World class talent raises stakes in rugby’s IPL
Matt McIlraith sets the scene ahead of next weekend’s kick-off in Japan
George Kruis, Hadleigh Parkes, Greig Laidlaw, Alex Goode, Owen Williams... Over 150 foreign-born players in all, including 14 All Blacks, ten Wallabies and eight Springboks, with 12 foreign head coaches for good measure.
Welcome to the 2021 Top League, which kicks off this coming weekend in Japan.
The jewel of the Japanese domestic game, the competition is also fast-becoming rugby’s equivalent to the glitter and glamour of Indian Premier League cricket.
While Covid-19 brought the last edition to a halt after six rounds – and has subsequently delayed this year’s kick-off by a month – the league has resisted external economic and social pressures and is continuing to go from strength-to-strength.
This is so much so, that next year will see its transformation from semi-professional to fully pro, slimmed down from 16 participants to a 12-team competition, the potential quality of which is already proving enticing for big names.
While the aforementioned players represent the lamplighters for northern hemisphere internationals, more are coming with clubs reporting widespread interest from player representatives of Six Nations internationals.
Their addition to a league that is already heavily populated by current and recent southern hemisphere internationals reinforces the view expressed recently by former Wallaby, Barbarians, and current Panasonic Wild Knights coach Robbie Deans, that Japan is now “the place to be”.
And Deans would know. Still the record holder for the most titles in Super Rugby with five, 13 years after he left Christchurch, the former Crusaders coach contributes half of the ten titles from the southern hemisphere’s premier club competition that have been won by coaches now active in the Top League.
Putting the number in perspective: Deans’ protégé at the Crusaders, Scott Robertson, is the only current coach in Super Rugby across any of the New Zealand, Australian, or South African iterations, who won the combined competition.
The acquisition of such a high level of expertise by Japanese clubs, who are run as subsidiary entities of some of the biggest name corporates in the world, was a statement of intent.
It has undoubtedly contributed richly to the country’s rise as a Rugby World Cup quarterfinalist. Six of Japan’s squad at the 2019 tournament are tutored by Deans at Panasonic.
Others are being schooled by such coaching luminaries as Wayne Smith (Kobelco Steelers), Steve Hansen (Toyota Verblitz) and even Eddie Jones (Suntory Sungoliath), who hold either director of rugby or paid consultancy roles.
Seasoned coaches of the ilk of ex-Georgia coach Milton Haig (Suntory), former Bath and Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder (Toshiba Brave Lupus), and the former Lions (South Africa) and Gloucester coach Johan Ackerman (NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes), are also contributing from head
coaching positions.
With such coaching excellence on offer, as well as the prospect of financial stability – shielded from the whims of wealthy businessmen club owners – it shouldn’t surprise that the quality of the imports, and the overall level of the playing standard, has improved rapidly in recent years.
Once considered the domain of those seeking a lighter playing load and a decent retirement fund, this year’s competition includes seven of New Zealand’s World Cup squad, three of whom will return to the All Blacks later in the year.
While All Black coach Ian Foster keeps a close watch on fly-half Beauden Barrett, halfback TJ Perenara and lock Brodie Retallick in particular, he won’t be alone in studying the activity closely from afar.
Jacques Nienaber has six of the world champions on his radar, with hooker
Malcolm Marx, full-back Willie le Roux, lock Franco Mostert, centre Jesse Kriel, flanker Kwagga Smith and winger Makazole Mapimpi all bidding to impress the Springbok coach from a Japanese base, ahead of the British & Irish Lions series. Wallaby coach Dave Rennie may also be nervous, as his skipper Michael Hooper spends time playing alongside the former All Black captain Kieran Read at Toyota. Rennie will get his influential openside flanker back mid-year after his playing sabbatical ends.
He’d probably like to get the departed World Cup Wallabies Bernard Foley, Christian Lea’li’ifano, Samu Kerevi and Will Genia back too, but all four are now off his selection template having said their sayonara to Australian rugby, most likely for good.
After being pushed back when Covid outbreaks hit four clubs just days before the opening games, the league will now be run in two phases, with the first series of matches determining ran kings for the second, which will be a knockout round, leading up to a final on May 23.
Teams are limited to five foreigners on the field at any one time, only two of whom can be capped internationally, but many non-Test players nationalise to by-pass this quota, increasing their value to clubs, and to Japan.
The Wild Knights, who have won three titles since Deans began his association with the club, will be one of the favourites. A fourth success since 2014 would cap off a significant year for the club,
which includes a move to a new state-of-the-art new training base at Kumagaya, in the Saitama prefecture, as well as the creation of a formal rugby partnership with the Queensland Reds.
Japanese star Kenki Fukuoka, whom Irish and Scottish fans may remember with anguish after his key tries against them at the World Cup, is among the new teammates for Kruis and Parkes.
Well on the way to his doctor’s certificate, the popular winger put his studies on hold last year to appear for Japan at the Olympic Sevens tournament, which was subsequently delayed.
Although the Olympics is officially still on for this year, even if it is looking shakier by the day, Fukuoka has opted to fast-track his studies, forsaking any further rugby ambitions as a result.
He will still saddle up for the Wild Knights before signing off, which will allow the 28-year-old a fitting farewell.
Alongside the Wild Knights, Kobe was the only other unbeaten team when time was called on last year’s competition. The club will be a major player again, especially after adding former All Blacks Aaron Cruden and Ben Smith to a roster that already featured six New Zealanders, three of whom have played for Japan.
With last year’s competition unfinished, Kobe are defending the title from 2019, when Dan Carter led the way as the club were crowned champions for the first time since they won the inaugural Top League in 2003.
The arrival of Barrett strengthens Suntory’s hand, as the Sungoliath bid to reclaim the title they won in 2018. A four-time Top League winner, Suntory is the ‘Toulon’ of Japanese rugby, featuring 14 foreign-born players, and five of the Brave Blossoms’ World Cup roster.
Blackadder’s Toshiba were big improvers last year, winning their first four games, while the Kubota Spears, coached by the two-time-SuperRugby-winning South African, Frans Ludeke, should also be in the frame.
Kubota made the final for the first time two years ago and boast a squad that was represented in each of the Japanese,
Australian, New Zealand and South African World Cup squads.
Heavy player investment, most notably through raids on the coaches’ former club Gloucester, means that the performance of the Red Hurricanes will provide another point of interest.
The story that has provided the most headlines in the preseason though, is a local one, and centres on the retirement of former Japanese World Cup star Ayumu Goramaru.
The try-scoring hero of the ‘Miracle of Brighton’ recently announced he will finish with Yamaha Jubilo at the end of the season, sparking a media frenzy around a player whose profile reached Jonah Lomu-like proportions in Japan.
Goramaru, left, became so popular in the aftermath of Japan’s landmark victory over South Africa, that he remains the most recognisable player in his homeland, six years on from that famous day.