NEC Tame Wild Knights

Sanyo Samurai
By Joe Duggan
September 28 2004

On Saturday fans were treated to a very entertaining double bill of Japanese Top League matches. In the first of these, Suntory Sungoliath played Ricoh Black Rams. It was a great game. Suntory, who have always been on of the stronger sides in Japan led 16-0 at one point.

But Ricoh battled back and scored 20 unanswered, including 2 tries in the last quarter to win 20-16. Suntory won this fixture 63-26 last season, but they have lost both their opening matches this season. On the other hand, Ricoh have come from behind to win both their games. Last week, they scored 10 points in the last 9 minutes to beat Sanyo 25-20. Speaking of Sanyo (or Sanyo Wild Knights, as they're known), they were NEC's opponents that afternoon. With former All Black, Tony Brown making his debut at 10 against Jaco, this was going to be an interesting confrontation between two great fly halves.
	Before the game, Sanyo, playing in the England-style away kit, aired a highly amusing promotional video. It started off with your typical samurai type imagery, with words like 'honour' and 'strength' being shown in Japanese Kanji characters on a fiery background, and players slapping each other and shouting in each other's faces to get psyched up. All very macho! Then, inexplicably, it shifted to clips of on field action to the soundtrack of a terrible pop song sung by a female with an irritating nasal whine. Mariko was laughing all the way through it. I was just confused.
Then the teams were announced on the big screen, and I took a photo of when Jaco came up. However, on examining the photo at home, I realised they'd spelt 'Jaco' wrong in Japanese. It should be written (ya-ko), but it says, which says 'ya-go'. Those 2 little strokes in the corner make all the difference. I know what it's like, though. I've even had doctors miss them off my name, and been called 'da-ka-n' or 'ta-ga-n' (it should be da-ga-n, by the way). Aplogies to Joe, but the html will not handle the Japese character that you put in the report - so sorry, gomen nasai, Joe san.
	Anyway, onto the rugby. Right after Jaco kicked off for NEC, they were on the attack and had Sanyo under a lot of pressure in the first 10 minutes.
After 5 minutes, Jaco passed to put left winger, Joichi Ohigashi, through a gap in the corner, but he lost the ball in the tackle going over line. NEC came straight back into Sanyo's 22, and were awarded a penalty 15m out over on the far side of the field. Rather than taking the points, they kicked for the corner. NEC won the lineout and after a couple of phases, the ball came out to Jaco, who stepped between 2 men to touch down under the posts to score his third try in 2 games. Full back Keichi Takei added the extras to make it 7-0 with 10 minutes gone. From the restart, NEC were penalised for crossing in their own 22. Full back, Tanabe, kicked from in front of the posts, to make it 7-3. After Jaco and Brown exchanged 50m touch kicks, Sanyo came back on the attack, and after some good interplay between the forwards and backs, their centre, Koga, went over to put Sanyo into the lead, with Tanabe converting to make it 10-7. On 20 minutes, Brown hoisted a huge bomb into NEC's 22, which was superbly taken by Sanyo centre Enomoto. The ball came back to Brown, who spectacularly switched the direction of the attack with a long pass to the right, when he was running left. This wrong footed the NEC defence, and a phase later, scrum half, Ikeda spun a long floated pass out to number 8, Vahafolau, who touched down in the corner. Once again, Tanabe added the extras to make it 17-7. After a poor kick downfield from Sanyo (their fullback, Tanabe, I think), Takei picked the ball up in midfield, and broke through the Sanyo defence, NEC were awarded a penalty for handling on the ground, which they kicked to the corner. After 3 penalties given on Sanyo's goal line were kicked to the corner, flanker Glen Marsh peeled off a rolling maul to score. It was the New Zealander's first try of the season. Takei kicked the conversion to reduce the deficit to 3. A few minutes before half time, Sanyo went offside at a ruck just outside their 22, and Takei levelled the scores. NEC withstood some strong Sanyo pressure in the dying minutes of the half, until Brown knocked on, and Jaco cleared from the resulting scrum, which was the last action of the first half. The 17-17 score line was a fair reflection of a very even first half. The battle of the fly halves was pretty even, too.
For the second half, we sat at the other end of the stand, in among the Sanyo fans. Sanyo's fans are great! There were 5 or 6 of them dressed in red samurai armour, swords and all. There were probably about 500 Sanyo fans altogether, and they had all bought these pairs of inflatable stick that you clap with, basically. When Sanyo score, having all these people banging their inflatables together (oo-er!) sounded like there was a giant bee hovering over the stadium.
In the opening moments of the second half, Vahafolau was sin binned for a high tackle on Takei. Jaco kicked the penalty into touch in the corner. After a few phases of play, Jaco dinked a kick through the Sanyo backs, which ricocheted to flanker Ohigashi (there are 2 of them in the team) who laid the ball back a metre out for centre Masayoshi Mukoyama to pick up and score probably the easiest try of his career. With Takei receiving treatment on the touchline, Jaco took over kicking duties to add an easy conversion and make it 24-17. Minutes later, Sanyo were awarded a penalty in front of the posts after NEC infringed at a ruck. With full back Taneda replaced at half time, scrum half Ikeda took over kicking duties and missed NEC countered and spent a few minutes camped on the Sanyo goal line. Despite some strong forward play and some deft passing from Jaco, Sanyo defended very well. The ball came out to the right, where Ohigashi (the winger) was superbly tackled by Brown in the corner, and was penalised for not releasing. Brown's kick didn't find touch, and NEC countered. Sanyo's replacement prop, Tachikawa, come in from the side at a ruck in centre field, and the returning Takei kicked the resulting penalty from 30m out, to give NEC a 10 point advantage.
After keeping Sanyo at bay in midfield, NEC were awarded a penalty just inside the Sanyo half, when centre, Enomoto, failed to release the ball when he was wrapped up by 3 NEC defenders. From about 45m out, Jaco slotted the penalty to make it 30-17.
After 64 minutes, Tony Brown was replaced by Yonemoto. Sanyo came straight back on the attack and put the NEC line under a period of sustained pressure, which resulted in a penalty for Sanyo. They took a short tap penalty from 8 metres out, but with NEC not retreating 10m, they were awarded a penalty 5m from the NEC line, where they opted for the scrum. After a huge shove, Vahafolau touched down at the base of the scrum for his second try of the game. Ikeda added an easy conversion to put Sanyo within a converted try of taking the points. Sanyo only managed to cross NEC's 22 once in the closing stages. The Green Rockets' defence was very solid, which forced a few errors from the Wild Knights. Every time NEC gained possession, Jaco would kick them back into their 22. After 5 minutes of injury time, the final whistle finally went, with NEC running out 30-24 winners. As for the battle of the fly halves, well, Brown's tackling was better than Jaco's, and both ran their back lines very well. They both made some excellent touch kicks as well. I think Jaco's tactical kicking was more precise, though, and his overall contribution had more effect on the outcome. But, as with the match itself, there wasn't much in it. I think Brown will settle in better after a few more games, though. As I mentioned earlier, this was his debut, so I'm sure his best is yet to come. Overall, it was a great day out, with two close, entertaining games and a great atmosphere, making it worth a lot more than the fiver each we paid to get in. NEC: 15 Takei (Tanaka 75 mins), 14 Kubota, 13 Mizuda (Konia 52 mins), 12 Mukoyama, 11 K. Ohigashi, 10 Jaco, 9 Tsuji, 1 Hisadomi (Higashi 52 mins), 2 Amino, 3 Kinoshita, 4 Asano (C), 5 Kumagae, 6 T. Ohigashi, 7 Glen Marsh, 8 Hidaka. T: Jaco, Mukoyama, Marsh C: Takei (2), Jaco P: Takei (2) Jaco Sanyo: 15 Tanabe (Nakamura 40 mins), 14 Miyake (Ishikawa 76 mins), 13 Koga, 12 Enomoto, 11 Hidaka, 10, Brown (Yonemoto 64 mins), 9 Ikeda, 1 Yamada, 2 Yamamoto, 3 Miyamoto, 4 Fukunaga, 5 Manako (Thompson 64 mins), 6 Kakibuchi, 7 Kawaguchi (C), 8 Vahafolau. T: Vahafolau (2) Koga C: Tanabe (2), Ikeda P: Taneda (Translating those names from the team sheet was difficult! I'm just glad I didn't have to do the ones from the other game, too! Still, it's all practice.)