"Big” birthday parties are meant to be memorable. The production team behind the opening ceremony of this year’s Rugby World Cup, however, might be hoping their “party” proves to be the opposite: A cycling baker, the pursuit of a flying chef’s hat and the booing of French President Emmanuel Macron all marked the opening of this year’s tournament at Stade de France.
Who said turning 200 was easy?
Still, fans got the excitement they wanted with an unexpected win by the host nation, France, over favorite New Zealand — the first time the All Blacks have lost a pool game since the tournament started in 1987. It turns out you don’t need pageantry and politicians to please rugby fans. A 27-13 win seemed to suit the 80,000 in attendance just fine.
But we can leave details of the game to the sports section. The Rugby World Cup currently underway — the 10th quadrennial world championship — is a part of two centuries of history that have led the game to this point: An international federation comprising some 500 million supporters and 8 million players within 132 national members — figures that place rugby among the world’s 10 most popular sports.
The Warwickshire, England-based Rugby School, the birthplace of the sport, is leading the anniversary celebrations with exhibitions, international matches, a record-breaking scrum of 3,000 children and a re-creation of the invention of the sport. And that ardor has spilled over into other countries, too, with grassroots organizations setting up games, festivals and get-togethers throughout the year to celebrate rugby and its core values — defined in 2009 in the World Rugby Playing Charter as “integrity, passion, solidarity, discipline and respect.”
“In 1995, rugby played a significant part in the history of South Africa, to help unite our country,” South Africa-born Kubota Spears coach Frans Ludeke said of his nation’s win at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the first major sporting event South Africa joined since the dismantling of apartheid between 1990 and 1994.
Lulama Smuts Ngonyama, the South African ambassador to Japan, agrees, recalling the impact of the 1995 tournament. “Rugby became a game for peace, reconciliation, friendship building — even nation-building,” he says. “Everyone celebrated in all corners of my country because of rugby.”
The sport has also provided lessons in fairness, honor and sportsmanship in Japan, particularly through the wholehearted acceptance of “no side,” a term called by the referee at the end of a rugby match to indicate neither side has the next possession of the ball.
“The concept of ‘no-side’ developed in Japanese rugby to represent the mutual respect, camaraderie and friendship between all players and fans,” notes an article from 2019 in Keio University’s Keio Times.
And, as recently as 2019, the RWC was an opportunity to show the resilience and spirit of humanity, first epitomized by Kamaishi Recovery Memorial Stadium, which was built on the site of an elementary school destroyed by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011 and, later, by the rapid cleanup that allowed several key pool games to be played in the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis. Indeed, Canadian players lending a hand to restore daily life in local communities was just one of the stories from the Japan tournament that went viral on social media.
Now, the stage is set for another RWC to catch the attention of the world — this time held over a longer 55-day period to give the players more rest, coming to a close with the final taking place once again in the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, on Oct. 28.
“France 2023 will be a fitting 200th birthday party,” said Bill Beaumont, chairman of World Rugby, adding that the event will “showcase the very best of our sport on and off the field” while being “remembered as innovative, sustainable and transformative; a tournament that brought people together.”
Roots to blossoms
At 200 years old, rugby is relatively young compared to other popular sports. Variations of soccer date from around the year 1200; golf is believed to have been first played in its modern form in the 15th century; and the first match of cricket as it is known today was recorded in 1697. Furthermore, unlike these sports, whose exact origin stories are unclear, rugby is credited to have been created by one person: William Webb Ellis.
One of many students at Rugby School who played a free-for-all ball game that permitted catching the ball but not running with it, Webb Ellis is recorded to have, in 1923, “with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time first taken the ball in his arms and run with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game,” according to a plaque where the incident occurred.
Soon after, three students incorporated this style of play into the first official rules and rugby became widely accepted and practiced, first across the Home Nations (England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales) and, later, overseas.
Rugby reached Japan’s shores in 1863, according to Kanto-based sports historian Mike Galbraith, who cites a record of a game played by non-Japanese residents. In 1866, Rugby School alumni were among those who established the Yokohama Foot Ball Club, while British residents and visiting sailors played games in other port cities such as Kobe in the 1870s, he adds.
Japanese participation is believed to have begun in 1899 when Edward Bramwell Clarke, an English lecturer at Tokyo-based Keio University, introduced his students to the sport through interpretation from fellow University of Cambridge alum Ginnosuke Tanaka. The game became a hit, leading to the proliferation of rugby at universities across the country and the establishment of universities as rugby strongholds, which remains true today.
The Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU), too, “originally developed around university rugby,” says union chairman Kensuke Iwabuchi, noting that it will celebrate its centenary in 2026.
Another sector that has been instrumental in the development of rugby in Japan is the corporate one. In 1928, Kobe Steel led the way when it set up its own club and encouraged its staff to play as a means of “strengthening body and mind.” Today that team, now the Kobelco Kobe Steelers of Japan Rugby League One, remains the country’s longest-running club.
The growth of corporate Japan from the mid-1950s to the 1970s inspired more and more companies to become team owners, creating the framework for Japan’s rugby leagues. Players were mostly amateurs who held jobs at the companies that owned the teams, a structure that largely held fast even after the rugby union went professional in 1995.
Fast-forward to 2019, a game-changing year for Japanese rugby, when Japan became the first country in Asia and first “non-traditional rugby nation” to host a RWC. With a total economic impact estimated at ¥646.4 billion (around $6.1 billion), it was the largest RWC in history, according to a 2020 EY report. In addition, the report continued, it was “the most competitive, best attended, most viewed, most socially engaged and most commercially successful of the nine men’s tournaments to date.”
Japan proved its worth not only as a host but a contender, with its team, the Brave Blossoms, punching above their weight to reach the quarterfinals for the first time. With this in mind, the JRFU launched a three-tier league in 2022 with 25 teams to replace the former corporate structure in a bid to further improve the national team and its players. By doing so, the JRFU’s hope is also to boost the level and popularity of rugby here at home.
Engaging the base
As supporting community-driven rugby is considered vital to creating a rugby-playing and rugby-loving nation, Japan’s role as host included engaging new players and fans while generating a buzz around the sport, including on social media.
Those efforts were aided by the Brave Blossoms’ victories over then-world champion Ireland and fifth-place Scotland, a reminder of Japan’s 34–32 win against South Africa’s Springboks at RWC 2015, an upset described as one of the greatest of all time.
“Anyone who watched those matches could not fail to have been moved by the pride and joy that those results generated,” says David Bickle, who played for Kobe Steel from 1993 to 1999 and was capped six times for the Japan national team as a lock forward.
“Japanese rugby has always had a passionate fan base, often rooted in a strong sense of personal connection between supporters and their favored team, for example through company, university or school affiliation,” he says. “Over the past 20 years, though, I think the appeal of the game has increased to capture the interest and enthusiasm of a wider fan base.”
Bickle attributes this change to the public’s affinity with rugby values and the national team’s success at recent RWCs, which “has been key to sparking increased domestic interest in the game.”
People have also been inspired to take up the sport by the national side’s improving performance. World Rugby estimates Japan saw about 1.18 million new rugby participants by the close of 2019 as a result of rugby workshops at schools and other local activities, or simply from watching tournament matches. It’s an achievement Beaumont describes as “perhaps the most important ‘try’ of the tournament.”
Among those who fell in love with the sport is Kayo Irie, a member of Min Japa Morning Rugby Club who is supporting the Brave Blossoms in France. “People from various backgrounds started watching and playing rugby, which opened the door for everyone to play,” she says.
Former rugby union and international player Takashi Kikutani, who captained Japan at RWC 2011, believes that work needs to continue to support the grassroots level and attract new players who can become seedlings in the sport.
“The grassroots of Japanese rugby is full of passion,” he says. “We need to strengthen the youth generation — to clarify a plan and invest in junior high school and high school teams, as well as under-20 teams. And we can help youth in areas with few players by carrying out promotional activities to draw new faces so that those young people can keep playing.”
The impact of COVID-19 on the momentum of Japan’s rugby development in the past few years has been keenly felt through canceled league matches, delays and a general freeze on local activities. But rugby enthusiasts are hoping the next five weeks of world-class play in France will provide a much-needed shot in the arm for fans eager to see the Brave Blossoms build on their 2019 gains.
“Japan are in a tough pool alongside Argentina, Chile, Samoa and England,” says Bickle, while noting that the Brave Blossoms “have proven their ability to cause upsets on the biggest stage and will be looking to do so again.”
(Japan beat Chile 42-12 last Sunday, while its next match is against England at Stade de Nice on Sept. 18 at 4 a.m. in Japan. The Brave Blossoms then face off against Samoa and Argentina on Sept. 29 and Oct. 8, respectively.)
Kikutani is also hopeful of Japan’s prospects after listening to the players’ goals at the team’s pre-departure news conference, particularly if veterans from the 2019 squad can successfully share what they’ve learned with other players, he says.
According to head coach Jamie Joseph, the team’s first goal is to make the Top 8 again.
“We understand that’s a massive challenge,” he says, “but the team takes a lot of confidence from what we achieved in 2019, surprising the world by the way we played and how we went through our pool unbeaten. It’s our challenge to do that again in 2023.”
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