Gregan makes his Top League debut

Amazingly, Gregan played a half of football this week. Suntory won to solidify their hold on 3rd place. Toshiba dropped their first game of the season, losing 42-16 to fourth place Kobe Kobelco Steelers. Sanyo remain undefeated after 9 rounds, though the cracks are beginning to appear as they struggled to put away cellar dwellers, Yokogawa Musashino Atlastars.

Bit of Top League news. Sanyo went to the top of the table with a 46-0 thrashing of Kubota Spears. Sanyo lead Toshiba on points difference. Elia Tuqiri is playing first five for Sanyo now. Brown is recovering well from his injuries, but his rugby career appears to be over. New Japan cap and second five, Masakazu Irie, takes care of the kicking duties. No bloody Gregan again, as he's playing for the Barbarians in Europe. I swear he's played two halves of football all season. Suntory won again, however, and remain third. Larkham's Black Rams remain undefeated and had a big 113-0 victory over the weekend. Larkham's been playing a bit of fullback of late.

Yikes. Good luck to him then.

I wanted to pass along this info about Tony Brown, who was seriously injured in his last club game -- http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/sports/20081105TDY22106.htm

Kirwan seems to be doing a reasonable job. His squad includes seventeen uncapped players, two of them from Universities, so he's out there scouting both Japanese and foreign talent. This two-Test series will give us a pretty good indication of where Japanese rugby is at. Japan beat the US a few times in the 90s, but historically the USA have been stronger. They haven't played each other since 2003, however, The Top League is fairly well established now, so we'll see if it's made any difference. I'm not sure if Kirwan would trade an international coaching job for a provincial job. He'd have to start off with an Air NZ side I imagine. Maybe Auckland.

OJ, is Kirwan's solutions to fixing up Japanese rugby limited to recruiting his fellow Kiwis - I can recall he did something similar when he was in charge of the Italian rugby team. I reckon eventually he will look to come back to NZ and probably coach a Super rugby side, do you reckon his coaching would be up to par to do this?

Ha, he only plays a half per game. BTW, if you translate Gregan's name into English from Japanese katakana, it comes out as "george gray-cancer." As usual, Japanese people are blissfully unaware that Japan are playing the US. I'm sure the sports papers and TV news will cover it, and the J Sports broadcaster is trying to up ticket sales with a stadium "Red Out" campaign, but it's minor level stuff. Sports are pretty minor in Japan in general. Kirwan named a 44 man squad. A couple of Kiwis are in there.

OJ, is there much build up to the game v the Eagles in Japan, I think this is Scott Johnsons's first game as US coach, see how things go fro them, if they play anywhere near as well as they did at RWC then the Japs will be no match. I cant believe Gregan is on a six figure salary yet his employer gives him time off to promote his book!! All I can say is that he must be a smooth talker and get on with the right people.

Quickish update -- Toshiba remain top of the table having won all their games by the bonus point margin. Sanyo are a point behind. David Hill vs. Tony Brown is shaping up as the showdown of the season. Hill scored three tries and slotted 9 from 10 for 33 points last weekend. Suntory have slipped to fourth after a loss to Yamaha Jubilo two weeks ago. It doesn't appear that Gregan's side can keep up the pace. Larkham's side are unbeaten in their regional competition. Top League takes another break for the Japan/USA Test matches. I'm hoping to go to the Tokyo Test.

The Top League kicked back into action after a three week break for Sevens World Cup qualifying. There was even a Gregan sighting, for a half anyway. He had two rounds off to promote his autobiography in Australia. What a cushy gig. Toshiba, Sanyo and Suntory continued to roll. There's a dogfight going on for fourth place. Most interesting news I have is the severity of the suspensions. Kubota Spears centre Hideyuki Yoshida was handed a nine-week ban for dropping a knee to the face. Another Spears' centre, Katoni Otukolo, received for six weeks for stomping an opponent's head. Suntory's Hirotoki Onozawa became the first player to score 50 tries in Top League competition.

Who needs Gregan when you have Tony Brown?!

No Gregan again this week! I'm not sure what the story is. Hell I'm not sure why Suntory signed him since they have depth at the halfback position. Suntory beat Kubota this week 36-25. A first half sinbinning to Drew Hickey let Suntory run in three tries, but Shane Drahm single handedly kept Kubota in the game before creating their second half try. That pulled Kubota within 4 with less than ten minutes to play, but Suntory's subsitute halfback, Shuetsu Narita, sealed the game with a solo run from the back of the scrum. Not the first time a scrum half's done that this season. The Sanyo monster routed the f--k out of Coca-Cola West Red Sparks 75-17. They ran in 11 tries, with Daniel Heenan scoring another two and Elia Tuqiri getting in on the action. They're a point behind my default team, Toshiba Brave Lupus, who have started the season with three bonus point victories. Toshiba are the former powerhouse of the league having won three straight years from 2004-5 to 2006-07 and winning the Microsoft Cup from 2005-07. Last year they finished a disappointing fourth, but they've got Kiwis David Hill and Stephen Bates, so it's all good. The Aussie loaded Kyuden Voltex put up a good fight, but David Hill scored two tries, three conversions and a penalty in the 29-15 victory. Kiwis beating Aussies even in Japan. Not sure that this influx of foreign first fives is particularly good for the Japanese national team, however. It improves the standard of backplay, but they really need Japanese first fives.

Shane Drahm... now there's a name to send shudders down my neck, and to think there was genuine talk of him playing fly-half for England. Talking of fly-half... does anybody recall Nathan Grey's stint at 10 for the Wallabies? Makes me giggle a bit even now.

Forgot to mention the highlight of the weekend, Tongan born Japan winger Christian Loamanu fending Caleb Ralph flat on his back as he crossed the line. Caleb!

Anybody remember Tim Atkinson? I believe he played for Australia 7s, the Reds, Brumbies and Australia A. He's formed a midfield pairing with Nathan Grey at Kyuden and scored a hat trick in the second half against Suntory to help grab a bonus point. Grey was sin binned for the second week in a row. Voltex is stacked with Aussies actually. Luke Doherty, Tom McVerry and Peter Miller also play for the side. Australian born, English qualified Shane Drahm has been quite the signing for Kubota. Last week he won the game with a drop goal in the 76th minute, this week it was a penalty in the 78th minute.

Some results from the weekend: Sanyo thrashed Yamaha 52-8 to underline their credentials as the No.1 side. Daniel Heenan was one of the try scorers. Suntory also won big, 65-26, against Kyuden Voltex. George Gregan didn't play however. These routs/results reflect the huge difference between the top 4 and the rest of the league, one of the big problems in Japanese rugby. Larkham's team won 71-6. Steve was on the bench, not sure if he got any game time.

Tony's played the last three seasons in Japan. He was the third highest points scorer last season and unanimously voted into the first five position for the league's Best Fifteen. He was also voted MVP by the fans in a J Sports poll. The Super 14 is more or less the Japanese off season (depending on whether a side finish in the top four.) Sanyo made it to the All Japan Final on March 16th, so after winning the championship, Brown flew to NZ to join the Stormers for their March 22nd game against Auckland. That was the sixth round of the Super 14. Anyway, this is Tony's fourth season in Japan.

Quote: "Tony Brown, who has carved out a niche for himself as the best first five in Japan" he was playing for the stormers in this years super 14 - dont know how he can become the great one you say only after one game in japan. but other than that lil bit of nit picking by me its great to read about overseas matches that feature aussies Cheers

I tried to get the Australian number off the IRB website, but according to them you have 0 registered players. Top secret.

OJ, Being the largest copier manufacturer in the world, you would have thought Ricoh had found a way to replicate Larkham, oh, say a dozen times!!!