Coach Robbie Deans upbeat ahead of Japan League One final

Japan’s new rugby competition will have its first final on Sunday, ushering in a new era with a contest between teams whose feats echo through the history of professional rugby in the country.

Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights will play Suntory Sungoliath in front of a likely packed house at the National Stadium in Tokyo in the final of Japan League One, the bigger and better successor to the former Japan Top League.

Both teams won five titles, or half of those contested in the 20 years of the former league. They met in last year’s valedictory final of the Top League when the Wild Knights beat Sungoliath 31-26 in front of of a crowd reduced by COVID to 4,000 people. The Wild Knights beat Sungoliath 31-17 during a regular season which also was disrupted by the pandemic.

Former All Blacks fullback and Wallabies head coach Robbie Deans will attempt on Sunday to win his fifth title as coach of the Wild Knights.

He leads a team which has won its last 31 matches in a streak extending over two seasons. Players such as England lock George Kruis or Wallabies center Marika Koroibete, who joined the Wild Knights after the 2019 World Cup, have never played in a losing Knights lineup.

“I had no idea what the streak was,” Deans said. “I’ve got no interest in it to be frank and the good thing is I don’t thing the players have either. They enjoy their work, they’re a good bunch to coach. I don’t want to say it but they look at it week to week and any challenges that present themselves, they do their best to cope and deal with them."

Deans sees the final restoring the excitement for rugby in Japan which grew during the 2019 World Cup which Japan hosted and which the pandemic briefly quieted.

“Prior to COVID rugby was on such a high in Japan,” Deans said. “In our first fixture after the (2019) World Cup we played Toyota and the Toyota Stadium and we had 37,000 people so there’s no lack of interest here. As things improve within the community there will be a lot of interest in this game for sure.”

Deans believes League One has continued — perhaps even accelerated — the growth in the profile and standard of professional rugby in Japan. It has attracted many of the world’s best players not at the end but at the heights of their careers.

The league now has a high profile outside Japan and has given Japanese rugby new credibility.

“I’ve been here for a number of years now and every year it just goes up, up, up,” Deans said. “It’s unrecognizable from when I first started. I think that’s probably what’s creating the interest outside Japan. There are a lot of players who are recognized and well known who are currently playing up here, current internationals, players who would be Super Rugby or Premiership players if they were in any other part of the world."

The next step, Deans believes, must be cross-border competition between Japanese clubs and those from Super Rugby or British and European competitions. The sticking point is the current, crowded international calendar.

“I see it as inevitable, as inevitable as you can be,” he said. “The international window conversation started in 2001 when I was with the All Blacks and they still haven’t resolved it.

“So, yes, it’s inevitable. There’s a genuine desire to do it but there are so many political parts that have to be catered for that there is nothing inevitable about when.”

___

More AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports