Explaining some of the major faults of the player development system in Japan, a system which their coach says leaves their young players progress 'retarded', but it's a system aged JRFU leaders stubbornly refuse to modernise and reform.
Japan have numerous advantages over most of the other competitors World Rugby list as 'High Performance Tier 2'.
According WR they have a registered player base considerably higher than any of those nations apart from the USA, and the sport has a presence in schools so players will play it from a young age.
The national squad is entirely professional. They have easily the highest profile, most experienced, and globally respected coach of those nations in Eddie Jones, who's constructed a backroom staff with expertise from all over the world. Those coaches also have comfortably the most preparation time to spend with their squad.
They also have a domestic league with the finances to attract numerous major talents from Super Rugby, and finally as one of the biggest economies in the world they bring an attractive market for WR.
Considering all that, Japan could or perhaps even should be a 'High Performance Tier 1 side', yet they flounder amongst sides not fortunate enough to come even close on many of those fronts.
The match against Canada last June was a good example. Canada had been together only a week, regrouping together for the first time in over 6 months, numerous top players were coming off a long, demanding European season.
The Cherry Blossoms on the otherhand had been together just under 2 months, allowing the coaching team far more time to work with their players.
Whilst contrary to going through a tough European season, a light schedule of a less physical brand of rugby and matches that were too easy, meant they were actually massively undercooked so needed to organise warm ups vs Samoa A.
Often over simplistically put down all to size, there are numerous reasons for their relative underachievement within what is a terrible system which squanders those advantages.
The rugby system is flawed at almost every level in terms of producing elite level players. Only the very most gifted players can make it through the system as international class players.
Schools
There's a system in place in Japanese schools, whereby a young teenager must choose one sport (or if they don't like sports some other activity like music etc) to play over their time at high school.
But as pointed out by rugby journalist Rich Freeman in an article he wrote for his site Rugby News Japan, this is not really a beneficial practice.
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| A Japanese equivalent of Kieran Read who was a player very talented in two sports, might have been lost to rugby with a 'bukatsu' (one club) system meaning kids have to choose one sport at school as a teenager. |
Firstly it would limit the talent pool predominantly to just merely the certain teenagers who chose the rugby club at aged 13. Virtually every other country would have talented athletes who may have excelled at numerous sports, and it's probable a large percentage of the players at the World Cup will have tried out several sports.
Imagine if a player like Kieran Read or Jeff Wilson, two of the best players over the past 20 years of rugby and also talented cricketers, were told aged 13 they had to choose one sport and that's all they could do. Their development in those next few years in the sport they didn't play would be non existent, and their talent would struggle to achieve potential.
The system also inhibits the possibility of a crossover player. Someone like Courtney Lawes or Mamuka Gorgodze, both immense physical athletes who played basketball until the age of around 16 or 17 before switching to rugby. In Japan, equivalent talents from other sports would unlikely get an opportunity to convert to rugby.
This 'bukatsu' (one club) system is a bizarre one, and also has risked players getting tired of the sport and simply dropping out and not even becoming just fans.
That would be even more understandable when you hear of the reports of the culture of sometimes long and tedious coaching at junior level in Japan.
In theory, having a bunch of kids just playing rugby from aged 13 could give an advantage as they hone skills and technique over that time, and do a lot of practice.
However that's not what's happening, as according to some observers, they aren't doing what would be considered purposeful and meaningful practice. Youth coaching in Japan is said to be regularly just mundane drills, often with players repetitively running up and down in lines just passing from side to side.
Eddie Jones actually referenced exactly that, when he did some coaching of some young players recently, and spoke of how they are not properly practising the skills actually required in the sport.
In that case Jones is just talking about monotonous, useless passing drills, but it's probable it carries over to doing similarly mundane drills for other facets of the game. Drills that most countries would have progressed beyond at about aged 8.
Recently Freeman again, said that Jones told him that players in Japan at a young age simply aren't taught from a young age what to do correctly at rucks.
Whilst in fairness, there's little Japan rugby can do about the 'bukatsu' system, what they should be able to address is reports that teenagers in Japan are widely coached like 8 year olds.
University
University rugby is a big tradition in Japan, the sport was rebuilt by the Universities after World War 2, and they have held much influence on Japanese rugby since, and the all time record for a rugby match in Japan is actually a University match not a national team match. Although it's another road block in the development path of a young Japanese player.
Whilst the most talented players in the English or New Zealand systems between the ages of 18-22 are breaking into first team squads at Premiership or ITM Cup/Super Rugby level if they're good enough. And even if not, still training in high performance academies, training alongside experienced professionals.
At the same age, the most talented Japanese players get stuck at University level for 3 or 4 years after leaving school, and basically play domestic under 21 rugby rather than transitioning to senior level.
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| Japan coach Eddie Jones hasn't been complimentary in his comments on the standard of University rugby. |
Similarly to the schools, the coaching at this level is widely regarded as utterly atrocious. Eddie Jones has branded the level as 'touch rugby', and in 2012 made some scathing comments on the standard saying 'to be honest, it's just not rugby, I don't know what they do in training but they have got to change'.
Yet that's level of rugby virtually every top young Japanese player passes through for 3 or 4 years, and they can't play in the Top League. Light years away from what equivalent talents in England, New Zealand, South Africa or France etc would be doing from that age.
Far from high performance academies, and playing and training alongside a mix of players including experienced adults. The most talented Japanese players have substandard training, and play exclusively at with other 18-22 year olds at a level what is overall considered appalling by all accounts.
It's the equivalent of telling young talents like Anthony Watson, Nicky Smith, Handre Pollard, Gael Fickou etc to play for some University instead of gaining experience with adults in their domestic leagues.
Players like Yoshikazu Fujita, Kenki Fukuoka, or other highly thought of Japanese talents like Yuji Kajimura could be training and playing alongside or against some of the Super Rugby calibre talent in the Top League, but are stuck playing University rugby.
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| Teikyo University have won the past two University Championships with a series of thrashings. One sided games appear to be common in University rugby, as do high scoring basketball scorelines. Eddie Jones said of the standard 'it's just not rugby' but 90% of Japanese players spend ages 18-22 playing it. |
In the recent University Championship the champions Teikyo, who provided 4 of this year's Under 20 squad, won the tournament with a string of scores of 43-3, 83-12, 98-15, 53-10 (semi final), 50-7 (final). They also won the previous year with a strong of scores of 102-5, 78-5, 76-19, 45-14 (semi final), 41-34 (final).
Over the past three seasons of the University Championship, over 35% of the match have featured a side scoring 50 or more points, over half have featured sides scoring 40 or more points.
That's likely where the 'touch rugby' comment comes from, as reports suggest the likes of the elite talents in Fujita or Fukuoka (the only two University players who are the exceptions in making the national squad) find that level too easy.
Indeed back in 2013, when Fujita played his first international against non-Asian opposition and in his first touch got turned over and a try was conceded, Eddie Jones talked about how in University rugby he would just 'push the kids off'.
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| Yoshikazu Fujita here in his Crusaders training gear has travelled a lot to New Zealand to learn rugby, and is an exception to the rule when it comes to Uni- versity players breaking into the national team. |
Fujita, although at University, is actually a special case as he has been so ambitious with his career and travelled to New Zealand from a young age to chase his goals in rugby. Playing schools rugby at St Bede's, returned as a teenager to play club rugby for Linwood RFC, also trained with ITM Cup side Canterbury, and this year spent time as part of the Crusaders Wider Training Group.
That is unusual for a Japanese player to do though, and the experience (26 caps already) and class at aged just 21 that Fujita does is very much an outlier.
For the most part it's almost impossible for University players to be seriously considered to play a significant role for the national team.
It's also of no coincidence that the second youngest players in the squad Kotaro Matsushima, who is half South African half Japanese, was one of the few who skipped the University stage completely after high school and trained in the South African system with the Sharks Academy. If he stayed in Japan it would almost certainly delayed his progress for 3 years.
The University level of play appears to be no preparation whatsoever for young players in elite rugby. Reportedly the conditioning standards at University level are so far from what's required that many of the players that transition to Top League (not a great standard itself), are not considered ready and sit out much of their first season.
The Japan U20 team this year actually had a large preparation period for the Junior World Cup, playing two small tournaments in the couple months beforehand, one of which against fully adult teams where they got wiped out. But just like the senior team, that period together was merely countering the ill preparation that University rugby is.
Top League
There are some very common misconceptions in regards to the Top League, with a false impression created by the fact so many Super Rugby players have signed there in recent times. Notably that it is a fully pro league with an improving standard of play. Truth is though, it's actually a very strange setup.
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| When Eddie Jones coached Suntory Sungoliath he had rugby legends Fourie du Preez and George Smith in his team. Many Top League teams have high class players in their squads, but that has created a false impression over perceptions of the overall standard of the league. |
Whilst at the very top of the league, you may get some slightly more credible teams like Suntory Sungoliath, who were Eddie Jones' old team, with about 7 members of the Japan squad, and 6 or so players with Super Rugby experience including world class players like Fourie du Preez and Schalk Burger.
Or Panasonic Wild Knights, coached by multi-time Super Rugby winning coach Robbie Deans, about 6 members of the Japan squad, players with Super Rugby experience including Berrick Barnes and JP Pietersen.
Or Toshiba Brave Lupus, with about 5 members of the Japan squad, plus Tanerau Latimer, Francois Steyn and Richard Kahui in their squad. Those three sides have won every single Top League title since the league's creation in 2003, barring the inaugural one.
Those sorts of teams have some experienced coaches, and reports say that the facilities at these teams are of high quality, with James Haskell who had a season at Ricoh Black Rams commenting that facilities were 'as good, if not better than anywhere else I've experienced'.
But the catch is the although almost all the teams will have names Super Rugby fans will recognise, the overall level of talent in the league is not high at all and the standard rapidly descends from the top to bottom.
There are 16 teams in the league, and there's not even close to the depth in Japanese rugby to fill out those teams to a decent enough standard, especially of course with most of the players having not had good coaching through the school or University system.
However plenty of foreign players which could potentially raise standards, but they aren't due to the ludicrous restrictions of just 2 foreign players on the field at once enforced.
So of 240 starting players on a weekends rugby, at least 208 will be Asian qualified players. There's nowhere near that many high level Asian players.
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| It's no wonder JP Pietersen looks so happy here. He's just won the Top League and picked up a pay cheque sitting a lot of the season on the bench, due to idiotic restrictions on foreign players that lower standards and waste a good chance for Japanese players to test themselves against proven internationals from Super Rugby. |
This leads to ridiculous situations where many of the foreign players who could raise the standards, offering an aspiring young player or member of national team a chance to test themselves against world class talent and learn what it may take to play international rugby, but instead just sit on the bench.
For example in last season's Top League, JP Pietersen sat out a lot of it on the bench behind a Japanese player Seichii Shimomura, a 33 year old who with all due respect is not the calibre of Pietersen, as Panasonic preferred former Wallabies lock Daniel Heenan to play alongside Berrick Barnes as their foreign players.
Similarly, All Black scrum half Andy Ellis sat most of the season on the bench at his club Kobelco Steelers, with Andries Bekker and Jaque Fourie in the squad.
Tanerau Latimer didn't start a single game for Toshiba with Francois Steyn, Richard Kahui and Steven Bates (a 1 cap All Black) occupying the overseas places between them.
For next season one team in the league, NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes, have got Heinrich Brüssow, Handré Pollard, Eben Etzebeth and Israel Folau in their squad for next season. So good luck to Wimpie van der Walt getting a start as a foreigner there.
Loosening those restrictions, and reducing the size of the league would raise standards considerably for players to develop in, but the fact is proven internationals will sit on the bench behind some Japanese non-entities next season. A complete waste of an opportunity for Japanese players to meet the kind of player they face at the World Cup.
Also, you have to ask, what exactly is the point of signing so many players when they end up just sitting on the bench? It's just about as much of an easy earner as you can get for those players, but it's surely just a waste of money for those companies.
Furthermore, of those minimum 208 Asian players in a weekend's Top League lineups, it has been suggested that league is fully pro, but that is not the case.
As Japanese rugby journalist Tomoshige Fujino said in an article on Japan rugby that the 'Top League is a mix of professional and semi pro players'.
Haskell also said in that piece that 'typically in Japan you have a squad of 60 players, of which 12 are full-time and the rest go to work every day, so guys in our side at Ricoh would, say, work at the marketing department there and then come to training after a full day's work'.
Those professionals include the foreigners obviously, and the elite Japanese players of the type you would see in the national team. The percentages of full professionals would vary for different teams, but particularly the further down the league you go the bulk of the squads wouldn't be so, and are working at the company they play for as well.
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| Panasonic Wild Knights have star players from abroad, numerous names from the Japan team, and a world renowned coach. But the gulf between the champions and the bottom few sides appears to be a pretty large one, furthering the widely held view that 16 teams is way too many for the league to have an overall decent standard. |
As you approach the bottom of the Top League, it is basically the equivalent of a low lying Principality Premiership side (just with a star foreign attraction) facing off against a region.
Last season Robbie Deans coached Panasonic with Keita Inagaki, Shota Horie, George Whitelock, Ryu Holani, Fumiaki Tanaka, Berrick Barnes, Akihito Yamada all in their team and would be pros, thrashed the bottom team Munakata Sanix Blues 80-7, a team with none of the Japan squad and who would be mostly semi pros apart from star attraction ex Bok Jacques Potgieter.
They beat the second worst side 54-5. There's a gulf there between top and bottom, and the large size of the league just further removes the league as an elite competition. Eddie Jones said he wanted less teams in the league a while back, only for it then to be increased from 14 to 16.
Also worth noting whilst some of the Japanese players are pro, some would be expected to move into a job full time at the company after retirement. That relates to the 'shūshin koyō' (job for life) relationship the players have with the companies, and that's what has made it so tricky for Japan to sign any players for their Super Rugby side.
So whilst the impressive list of All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks may give the impression of an improving professional league, it is far from it. The Japan team will be full time pro, but they are playing mostly alongside and against semi-pros, and the standard will be miles from replicating test match rugby.
Eddie Jones recently actually said the overall standard of Top League is of a lower level than the Asian Championship, which a pretty bad indictment. Japan have spanked every team in that tournament for years, even experimenting with their team or playing badly.
This year they were utterly terrible against South Korea but still put nearly 60 points on them, thanks to the feeble tackling that is prevalent in Asian rugby.
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| GIF: Japan did not play anywhere near their best in this year's Asian Championship, but still won every game easily. This try vs Korea was just about the most feeble of defensive efforts you could see, and there were several more. Yet Eddie Jones actually said this year that Asian Championship is a higher standard to evaluate his players than Top League rugby, which was a damning indictment on the competition. |
Indeed, the good players who play in the league appear to find it pretty easy. For instance Jaque Fourie in three seasons has according to itsrugby.fr has 42 tries in 48 matches.
Giant Nemani Nadolo smashed league records with 55 tries in 51 matches, but his record for tries in a season was broken by Japan's own wing Akihito Yamada who's a try machine in the league scoring 65 tries in 72 matches in his past 5 seasons. That's simply not test rugby.
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| GIF: Without wishing to denigrate Akihito Yamada's finishing ability or achievements, but scores such as this in the Top League with players falling off tackles in that manner would be far rarer in test rugby. |
Football was in a similar position with competitors like 'Nissan Motors', 'Matsushita Electric' etc, before reforming to the fully professional J-League, with no 'jobs for life' contracts, and built around cities not companies (Nissan Motors became Yokohama Marinos for example, Tokyo Gas became FC Tokyo) making it easier to market and grow.
Senior team
As explained up top, Japan have the advantage of preparation time and quality experienced coaches taking charge of their national team.
But thanks to the poor preparation and skill levels from school, University and Top League, Eddie Jones and his team often basically have to spend that time retraining and gearing his side to adapt to the demands of an almost a totally different code of rugby.
Trying to root out the bad habits players may have from playing in a league where the physicality or expectations in defence are not the same as test matches. What the players do in the Top League, what they did in University or schools is not what they would need to do in test match rugby.
Jones hasn't done as bad a job as some suggest, and over the past 5 or 6 years the weak tackling culture of Asian rugby has been masked over somewhat when it comes to the very top with the national team. Traces of it flare up and soft tries are still conceded, but it is nothing like it was if you watch Japan matches pre-2008.
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| GIF: Fiji sent explosive runners off set piece ball well in excess of 100kg directly down the 10 channel at Harumichi Tatekawa, but the fly half bravely held his ground and made the one on one tackles. In previous years this would very likely be a line bust. Japan's past two coaches have worked hard to root out the weak tackling culture of Asian rugby within the national team and find players like Tatekawa who can stand up to the physical challenges posed in test rugby, but it makes it hard with it being so prevalent at all levels below, that time is spent retraining players to play an almost completely different code of rugby. |
But there is only so much the coaching staff can do with a team that has played so little rugby of a level that somewhat resembles test match rugby.
Take for example the hugely talented loosehead prop Keita Inagaki, who at 25 years old still has very little experience. He spent 4 years playing University rugby with Kanto Gakuin, and was not really an option. It was only after a full season in the Top League that he could reach the national side, and even then he still would have not faced anything like test match rugby.
That Inagaki came into the side and in his first match utterly demolished the Maori All Blacks, with front row all with Super Rugby experience was impressive, but a testament to his talent, and work with the scrum coach Marc dal Maso than anything he'd been doing in University or Top League.
Video: Keita Inagaki demolished the Maori All Blacks scrum in his
first matches for Japan, and clearly showed much talent as player
to watch in the future. But despite being 25 he is still inexperienced
due to the 'retarded' development system and had to learn his
lessons and experience in international rugby, where in Eastern
Europe, facing a prop the same age but with vastly more experience,
things didn't go his way so much and was yellow carded in Georgia.
But the fact remains, a player who has impressed many in the early part of his international career, is still at age 25 a relative rookie with just 6 caps, and only a few games where he would have competed at a strong level. And although he
This is what Jones has talked about with development being 'retarded'. Compare with his contemporaries, Joe Marler, Eddy Ben Arous, Xavier Chiocci or Mikheil Nariashvili all born the same year in 1990. All have seasons worth of experience at senior level now.
While we're seeing younger players like Nicky Smith, gaining that experience now with the Ospreys and gradually breaking into the Welsh team. That could have been Inagaki four years ago, but development is delayed so he's at the point in terms of breaking into the side that a 20/21 year old would be in other nations.
Nariashvili of Georgia is the same age, yet has 4 seasons and 80+ games of Top 14/Champions Cup experience, playing with against international level talent from all over the world, and has 26 international caps.
Inagaki just has around 30 odd games in a couple of Top League seasons, most of which wouldn't be near to reflecting international opposition, one brief cameo at Super Rugby level, and around 8 matches for Japan against relatively stronger opposition.
Jones has talked in the past about his players having to learn from their mistakes at test match level, in lieu of a testing domestic level. And there was possibly a case of that when Inagaki after doing so well against Maori All Blacks, was part of a tricky tour of Eastern Europe.
Video: Eddie Jones, referencing Kenki Fukuoka's error that gave Wales
forward momentum in the build up to their try, stated that his players
learn lessons and develop whilst playing international level with domestic
rugby not preparing players well.
It was claimed that would allow Japanese players to get that high level of rugby experience, but that JRFU put forward that was indicative of the flaws in their thinking.
They have an poor system leading everywhere up to the national team, their answer to failures at the top has been to appoint well known coaches, affording them excellent facilities thinking that alone will change their fortunes. Whilst ignoring and protecting Universities where influence lies.
Again with Super Rugby, they focused everything at the top, ignored the absurd development system that players go through before reaching the top. So asking for Super Rugby to correct and make up for the flaws in the core of the development system.
Super Rugby falling through could be a blessing in disguise. It was always a massive waste of money flying a team across the globe like that, and JRFU never had the money anyway, and although a faint hope, the embarrassment of losing that or the 2019 World Cup could force the board made up of OAPs under some pressure to modernise and reform.
Also as mentioned, if they loosened foreign player restrictions and less teams, they could have offered a higher standard of domestic rugby at home for more than just 15 players in a team anyway.
The Cherry Blossoms cannot progress significantly whilst handicapping themselves with the current system. The best coach in the world could take charge and they would still have to overcome personnel who may not have been coached properly as kids, and have little experience beyond University at the age of 23.
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| Here is the 77 year old Yoshiro Mori passing over JRFU presidency to the 76 year old Tadashi Okamura. Japan rugby is nearly entirely run by people in this age bracket. The ages of the vice presidents are 75, 71, 74, 72 and 63 respectively. They include the president of Top League, president of Kanto, Kansai and Kyushu regions, and the recently outgoing JRFU CEO Tatsuzo Yabe. The lot of them have in place a system that is totally flawed in terms of developing elite level talent, yet this as yet has been ignored. |
But there is an unwillingness and stubbornness with the OAPs that run the JRFU. If Japan fail again at the RWC, they will blame to coach, and often turned on the selection of any foreign players in the team and blamed them in the past too.
But they repeatedly fail to question why the coach may trust those players more and certain players who've gone through the Japanese system may not be considered good enough.
On the pitch Japan look likely to go through yet another major post-RWC overhaul, which puts at risk the certain on field progress that has been made such as fighting the non-tackling culture of Asian rugby, or in the set piece.
Away from the pitch, administrators in the sport are likely rapidly losing trust in their dealings with the JRFU. So unless there is reform they could well be heading backwards in terms of both results and others willingness to work them. JRFU heads are buried in the sand, time will tell whether they belatedly modernise and reform the system.
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