Women’s rugby in Japan appears to be on the precipice of a boom.
The club game is getting stronger as teams move toward a more professionalized model, while homegrown talents like Sachiko Kato and Kanako Kobayashi are plying their trade in the top tier of English rugby.
There were further good tidings in February this year, when the Chiefs Manawa and Mie Pearls signed a memorandum of understanding to develop women’s rugby in New Zealand and Japan — the first partnership of its kind.
Participation in the sevens format, which serves as most girls’ introduction to the sport and is the game of choice for the Olympics, has also grown from 2,000 players to 5,000 in Japan in the past 20 years.
Grassroots and clubs form the foundation of every good sporting infrastructure, and that growth has borne fruit for Japan’s national teams.
The Sakura Sevens qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics following their victory in the finals of the Asia Rugby Regional Qualifier in Osaka last November, while the Sakura Fifteen won seven out of their nine test matches in 2023.
In April last year, the Japan Rugby Football Union named its first director of women’s rugby, Akane Kagawa, team manager of the Sakura Sevens from 2010 to 2021. Kagawa has been tasked with developing the women’s game, from the grassroots level up to the national teams in both 15-a-side and sevens.
Still, it’s a little premature to say that women’s rugby is seeing the same meteoric rise as the Brave Blossoms did under the stewardship of head coaches Eddie Jones and Jamie Joseph over the past decade.
But all signs point toward a brighter future.
For Yoko Suzuki, a former Japan sevens international who recently made the transition into coaching, development of the women’s game is all about creating more opportunities.
“I think that we need to increase participation in women's high performance. In Japanese women's rugby, we still feel that there is a gap in level compared to the top countries in the world,” Suzuki says.
“This applies not only to the players but also to coaching. That’s why it’s great to see programs like the Gallagher High Performance Academy helping to provide a pathway for aspiring female coaches.”
Suzuki is a recent graduate of the academy, run by World Rugby in partnership with insurance and consultancy firm Gallagher, which is aimed at developing existing coaching talent and identifying opportunities for first-time female coaches. The majority of top-level coaches in women’s rugby are still men, which prompted World Rugby to set a target of having women make up 40% of the coaches at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England.
Suzuki says her experience at the academy allowed her to learn from successful coaches and identify her strengths and weaknesses.
“I identified my super strengths as ‘communication skills’ and ‘humor,’” she says. “I believe that by having good communication with the team staff and players, it is possible to build a strong trust relationship. This is extremely helpful when the team is working towards a big dream together.”
Currently that big dream is to coach at the 2025 Rugby World Cup, where she hopes the Sakura Fifteen can show signs of their recent improvements on the biggest stage. But Japan, along with many other nations that make it into the tournament, will be far from the bettors’ favorite.
World Rugby’s overarching goal is to increase the competitiveness of the quadrennial women’s showpiece, the necessity of which has become more evident with each iteration. Since the United States won the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, only two teams have hoisted the trophy — New Zealand on six occasions and England on two — and those two countries have met in five of the last six finals.
High-performance academies are being touted as an important step in helping countries with fewer resources and talent pools narrow the gap with the front-running nations. And Suzuki believes they’re particularly important for countries like Japan, where there are fewer opportunities for women to develop as rugby players — and then as leaders after their playing days are over.
“I absolutely believe that Japanese women's rugby has a bright future,” she says. “Both the sevens and 15s national teams are steadily improving. At the same time, efforts need to be focused on increasing participation and nurturing talent.”
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