Official Review | Japan Rugby League One (Round 14)

Toyota Verblitz scored a stunning upset as the race for the sixth and final place in the playoffs intensified before
Japan Rugby League One enters the final regular season bye weekend.
Steve Hansen’s men, who started Saturday a whopping 31 points behind their opponents on the championship
standings, were too good for former league leaders Kubota Spears, grinding out a 24-7 victory on a wet day in Gifu
to further heat up the race for the finals.
With four games of the regular season to go, just five points cover the teams ranked between sixth and ninth,
each of whom won on the weekend.
Verblitz took charge in the 12th minute at a sodden Himaraya Stadium when All Black winger Mark Telea, who was
a handful for Kubota throughout, scored his fifth try of the season, latching on to a superb wide ball from centre
Siosaia Fifita.
The try was good reward for Toyota’s unrelenting pressure which continued throughout the contest as they
dominated the physical and tactical battle, finishing the opening period with three unanswered tries and a 17-0
advantage.
Playing catch up was always going to be difficult in treacherous conditions, especially as Verblitz continued to
monster Kubota in the collisions and contact areas after the break to make sure there was no way back for Frans
Ludeke’s charges.
Such was the home side’s supremacy, the second champions of League One were only spared the indignity of their
first scoreless afternoon since the competition inaugurated five years ago when replacement prop Opeti Helu
plunged over from close range with three minutes left.
It was still the first time since the competition began that the Spears had failed to achieve a double-digit score.

Helu failed to deny Verblitz a try-scoring bonus point, which pushed them above Mie Honda Heat on the
standings, but only on point’s differentials after the Franco Mostert-skippered side scored an upset of their own by
taking down fourth-placed Tokyo Sungoliath 24-17 in Saturday’s early game.
Former Italian coach Kieran Crowley’s side were led to their sixth victory from the last nine outings by Flying
Fijians hooker Tevita Ikanivere, who scored twice for the third time in four weeks as Honda rocked Sungoliath with
three tries in the opening 16 minutes.
The first was scored by Heat backrower Pablo Matera who rammed his way between two defenders from a ruck
near the goal-line to open the scoring.
The Argentinian test centurion later bookended a man-of-the-match performance by holding up prop Kenta
Kobayashi, when the Sungoliath man had appeared certain to score a game leveling try with one minute left.
While they remain ninth after the results above them on the table, Shizuoka BlueRevs kept themselves in the
finals conversation after a remarkable second half recovery at Nagasaki, overturning a 19-point deficit from the
opening half-an-hour to beat Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars 45-41.
The Dynaboars had taken control after a frantic opening which saw four tries shared between the teams inside of
the first 10 minutes, including one by Sagamihara’s All Black scrumhalf, Brad Weber.
The Shizuoka fightback was unsurprisingly led by their inspirational captain Kwagga Smith, who finished the
afternoon with two tries, the first of which was the seventh of an opening period which ended with his side
trailing 31-19.
It was all the BlueRevs after the break, with Smith’s second, Shizuoka’s fourth of the second half.
The Springbok backrower’s second try gave his side enough space to see the game out despite Sagamihara finally
achieving a fifth try – their first in the second period – just before fulltime to claim a losing bonus point, while
denying the BlueRevs of the try-scoring one.
Sunday’s games saw dual international Seta Tamanivalu score an invaluable hattrick for Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo
as they fought off a stern challenge from Urayasu D-Rocks to register their first win since mid-January after a 40-
24 success.
The defending champion’s first win in eight matches owed much to their All Black-turned-Flying Fijians centre,
whose third try helped quell a fightback by D-Rocks that had threatened to add to Toshiba’s woes, as Urayasu
drew up to 26-24 with 15 minutes remaining.

The 34-year-old, who had also scored against D-Rocks in the corresponding fixture in January, dotted down in each
of the 10th, 50th and 67th minute, although his efforts were not enough to earn his side a bonus point, Brave
Lupus finishing one try short in their six-try-to-four victory.
Kobelco Kobe Steelers took advantage of Kubota’s defeat in today’s other game, with All Black backrower Ardie
Savea scoring twice in their comfortable 40-19 win over BlackRams Tokyo.
Already the league’s highest try-scorers, Dave Rennie’s side added a further six to take their season tally to 92 – 16
of which have been scored against the luckless Black Rams – as they collected maximum points to breeze past the
Spears on the point’s table.
Kobe trail Saitama Wild Knights by two points after the latter returned to the competition summit for the second
time in three weeks following a 19th victory in a row against Yokohama Canon Eagles; this one a comfortable 42-
15 success.
Beaten at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium only once in the history of League One – by Shizuoka, whom they will face
after the bye weekend – the Wild Knights were never pressured by the Eagles, blowing the game open in the
second half after the visitors had held Saitama to two tries in the opening period.
Wallaby winger Marika Koroibete and Springbok midfielder Damian de Allende both scored after the break as
Yokohama’s resistance wilted, with the Wild Knights rounding out a satisfying afternoon by picking up their
seventh try-scoring bonus point of the campaign.
Wallaby flyhalf Noah Lolosio provided the star turn in Division Two, with a try-scoring hattrick amongst a 27-point
haul as Toyota Industries Shuttles Aichi outclassed Nippon Steel Kamaishi Seawaves 52-27 on their trip north to
Iwate.
The bonus point victory drew the Shuttles level with Hanazono Kintetsu Liners on points, but below them on the
win differentials, having won one game less.
Kintetsu, who have ex-Wallabies Will Genia and Quade Cooper on the coaching staff as advisors, missed out on a
bonus point despite edging a pulsating Osaka derby, coming from 14-points behind to beat RedHurricanes 36-31.
Division Three leaders SkyActivs crushed cross-town rivals Chugoku Electric Power Red Regulions 49-7 on derby
day in Hiroshima.

Division One

Saturday April 4
Mie Honda Heat 24, Tokyo Sungoliath 17; at Tochigi
Shizuoka BlueRevs 45, Mitsubishi Dynaboars 41; at Nagasaki
Saitama Wild Knights 42, Yokohama Canon Eagles 15; at Saitama
Toyota Verblitz 24, Kubota Spears 7; at Gifu
Sunday April 5
Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo 40, Urayasu D-Rocks 24; at Sapporo
Kobelco Kobe Steelers 40, BlackRams Tokyo 19; at Tokyo (Chichibu)