OSAKA -- It was a year in waiting, but Eiji Kutsuki's revenge finally arrived.
Toyota Verblitz flanker Takashi Kikutani avoids a tackle during a semifinal match of the Japan Rugby Football Championship against the Suntory Sungoliath on Sunday at Hanazono Stadium. Toyota won 39-17 to advance to the final with the Toshiba Brave Lupus on Feb. 25.
KYODO PHOTOToyota Verblitz head coach Kutsuki got even with Suntory Sungoliath coach Katsuyuki Kiyomiya, who led Waseda University to a win over Kutsuki's Verblitz last year in the quarterfinals of the Japan Rugby Football Championship, as Toyota booked a spot in the finals with a 39-17 win Sunday at Hanazono Stadium.
The Verblitz will meet Microsoft Cup holder Toshiba -- a 47-10 winner over Yamaha Jubilo -- for the championship on Feb. 25.
More than 3,000 fans, most of whom were company supporters, traveled to Osaka on special buses, despite the rainy start. What they saw was a sweet victory for Toyota and coach Kutsuki, who will retire after this season.
"We thought about this game for more than one year." said Kutsuki, not trying to conceal his grin of contentment. "I am happy that we could have our chance for revenge and that we won."
Toyota's forwards dominated the game from the very beginning, putting pressure on the young Suntory players at the breakdown and successfully converting to wide-line attacks.
Toyota prop Masahiko Toyoyama scored the first try in the second minute of the game, which was quickly followed up by flanker Takashi Kikutani scoring another.
Fly half Orene Ai'i finished off with kicking both at conversions and with a drop goal.
Suntory gained back momentum by the end of the first half, with scrum half Kiyonori Tanaka's try and center Ryan Nicolas' conversion.
However, while Toyota could fully develop its attacking game, Suntory's backrowers failed to successfully penetrate Toyota's defense. Kosuke Endo, Yoshitaka Nakayama and Tatsuya Kusumi scored successive tries in the second half to seal the deal for Toyota.
Takamichi Sasaki's try near the end came too little, too late for Suntory.
Meanwhile, at Tokyo's Prince Chichibu Stadium title defender Toshiba Brave Lupus was battling it out with Yamaha Jubilo, a team with a notoriously rhapsodic record of beating all top teams but losing to the weakest underdogs.
The Brave Lupus reveled in their offensive windfall, taking control straight away and coming up with an offense for which Yamaha had no counter.
"We chose the backwind side for the first half and concentrated on attacking" said Toshiba captain Teppei Tomioka. "Still, we didn't expect to score four tries in a row with that tactic."
The final will be held Sunday at Prince Chichibu Stadium and will begin at 2 p.m.