Rugby Union in Japan - History - Early 20th Century

Early 20th Century

The universities of Meiji, Keio and Waseda became strong centres for the game in Japan, and indeed the Keio vs Waseda match has been running annually since 1924.

In 1901, Keio University played "Yokohama Foreigners" losing 35-5, but the game demonstrated that the racial barriers in the sport were breaking down. Prof. Clarke played in this game, taking the conversion, after a student called Shiyoda scored a try.

The JRFU published a pamphlet about that time called The Land of the Rising Scrum. (a pun on the country's Japanese name, "Nihon", meaning "Land of the Rising Sun"), and the Japanese Royal Family have been keen supporters of the game for many decades.

From Keio, Japanese rugby swept to the other universities of Japan, and to this day, they remain a stronghold of the Japanese game. Doshisha and Waseda played the first inter-university game in 1923.

The growth of Japanese rugby in the early 20th century was astronomical - by the 1920s, there were nearly 1,500 rugby clubs, and more than 60,000 registered players, which meant that its resources were larger than those of Scotland, Wales and Ireland combined. Despite these extremely impressive figures, Japanese rugby was extremely isolated, and to an extent insular - the first rugby tours to Japan did not occur until the 1930s.

Japan and Canada, had the first tour outwith the main "traditional" rugby playing nations. Japan toured British Columbia in 1930, and Canada went on a tour of Japan in 1932. Canada won 5/6 of their first matches in Japan, before being defeated 38-5 by the Japanese national team, in front of a crowd of 25,000 on 31 January 1932. The Canadian team had been brought over by a trade delegation.

The Canadians ascribed their defeat to, "excessive entertaining, too many games in a short period, and the inspired play of the Japanese in front of the assembled nobility of Japan."

In 1934, an Australian Universities side toured Japan, and lost to Keio and Waseda, in front of crowds of more than 20,000.