On paper this game should have been a formality. The NEC Green Rockets -- the All Japan champion of 2003 and riding high in third place in the Top League against the Secom Rugguts, winless in this year's competition and without so much as a bonus point to show for their efforts.
But as the old saying goes "It's a funny old game."
By outscoring last year's champion by five tries to two, Secom threw the formbook out of the window by comprehensively beating NEC 37-10 at Tokyo's Chichibunomiya on Saturday -- a victory that saw it move off the bottom of the table and go above the Fukuoka Sanix Bombs, who take on the in-form Kobe Kobelco Steelers tomorrow in Kamoike, Kagoshima Prefecture.