Advertisement
Round 15 of the JRLO Division 1 gets underway on Friday 11th April with only four rounds left of the regular season and sides jostling for positions on the log to reach the playoffs and avoid the promotion-relegation battle.
Round 15 of the JRLO Division 1 gets underway on Friday 11th April with only four rounds left of the regular season and sides jostling for positions on the log to reach the playoffs and avoid the promotion-relegation battle.
Friday night lights as Mie Honda Heat in second-bottom and without captain Pablo Matera host second-placed Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights in Tokyo. The hosts are coached by Ex-Italy coach Kieran Crowley and they will be trying to avoid a 6th consecutive defeat. Robbie Deans and his Wild Knight will want to lock in a top-two finish and win their remaining matches and a starting lineup that features Lood de Jager, Ben Gunter, and Damian De Allende should get the job done.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Sagamihara Dynaboars get Saturday underway by hosting Yokohama Canon Eagles and will do so without injured Kurt-Lee Arendse. The Eagles are sitting one point below Suntory on the log and last week ended a four-match losing streak.
On Saturday, 4th-placed Shizuoka BlueRevs visit the league-leaders Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo with the hosts already having qualified for the playoffs. The visitors will go into the match resting their inspirational skipper Kwagga Smith but they have already knocked over Brave Lupus once this campaign 34-28, as well as the second-placed team Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights. The side have finished eighth in each of the competition’s first three editions – but are now possible title contenders. Charles Piutau captains the side.
The Toshiba Brave Lupus won't take BlueRevs lightly and starts with the likes of Shannon Frizell, Richie Mo’unga, and Michael Leitch as captain - the Brave Blossom legend will be running out for his 150th appearance (he has also made 34 more tackles than any other player in the Division with a tally of 228) - last week they blew away Kobelco Kobe Steelers 73-28. Brave Lupus’s Takuro Matunaga leads the Division points with 168 this campaign thus far.
Kobe coach Dave Rennie will be looking for a big improvement after that result and face bottom-placed Urayasu D-Rocks. They have Brodie Retallick back in the squad but miss out on the services of Ngane Laumape. For Greig Laidlaw’s D-Rocks side, Samu Kerevi has been the star in a tough season and the Wallaby has scored seven tries in his last six matches but they will be without Springbok backrower Jasper Wiese who has been ruled out of the rest of the competition due to a neck injury. They have signed former New Zealand U20s international Hunter Morrison.
On Sunday, the Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo-Bay third-placed side plays Tokyo Suntory Sungoliath and Frans Ludeke’s side will hope to beat the team in yellow with Suntory breaching the top six for the first time last weekend. The Spears have only lost once in their last six fixtures against Sungoliath but both are coming off big wins last weekend and Suntory will be keen to cement their top-six position with a win on the road and will be flying high after win last weekend which saw Kolbe score two games in a row.
Ricoh Black Rams host tenth-placed Toyota Verblitz in Sunday’s final match. The Black Rams have lost 17 of their last 19 games against the opposition which might bring some comfort to Verblitz’s under pressure coach Steve Hansen, as they are desperate to rescue their own poor season and suffered a big loss to Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights last week but discipline is an issue with the team receiving nine yellow cards and a red from 14 matches.
Division One (Japan times shown)
Friday April 11
Mie Honda Heat v Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights; at Tokyo, 7pm
Saturday April 12
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Sagamihara Dynaboars v Yokohama Canon Eagles; at Nagasaki, 12pm
Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo v Shizuoka Blue Revs; at Tokyo, 12pm
Urayasu D-Rocks v Kobelco Kobe Steelers; at Chiba, 12pm
Sunday April 13
Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo-Bay v Tokyo Suntory Sungoliath; at Osaka, 2.30pm
Ricoh Black Rams Tokyo v Toyota Verblitz; at Chiba, 2.30pm