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17,000 may attend Japan's university final despite COVID-19 limits - JRFU

The Japanese Top League has been suspended.

Japan’s university rugby championship final will go ahead in Tokyo on Monday with 17,000 supporters, despite new restrictions limiting crowds at major sporting events to 5,000 or 50% capacity, the Japanese Rugby Football Union said on Friday.

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The Japanese capital and three neighbouring prefectures are under a state of emergency, declared Thursday in response to a surge in novel coronavirus infections, with large venues having already been instructed to limit attendance.

However, the government has made an exception for events to which tickets were already sold.

Japan’s top domestic rugby competition, Top League, due to start on Jan. 16, will also go ahead with more than 5,000 fans in stadia as tickets for those matches have also already been sold.

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More than 17,000 tickets have been bought for Monday’s university final, to be held at the National Stadium built for the postponed Tokyo Olympics.

Over 24,000 spectators watched the final of J.League soccer’s Levain Cup at the same stadium earlier this week.

“We want to move ahead without cancelling any of these tournaments,” JRFU chairman Kensuke Iwabuchi told reporters on Friday.

“The situation changes day by day, hour by hour so we have to be flexible.”

“We will still hold the final based on what the government has said,” stressed Iwabuchi, who added that ticket holders who wanted a refund can seek one.

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“We have already sold the tickets and the government has agreed that matches with tickets already sold can go ahead.”

The coronavirus pandemic played havoc with sporting schedules throughout 2020 and forced the complete cancellation of last year’s Top League campaign.

Japan, though less seriously hit by the pandemic than many places, has been unable to rein in the virus to the extent some countries in the region have, with daily infections topping 7,000 for the first time on Thursday. (Reporting by Jack Tarrant; editing by Richard Pullin)

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JW 1 hour ago
'They smelt it': Scott Robertson says Italy sensed All Blacks' vulnerability

Even the 20/30 cappers did too I reckon.


IDK, I think Jordan has a limited life span in this side unless he can develop more to his game. Like you go on to mention, I think theyres more important things to worry about than the effectiveness of someone's extra strings, or secondary components to their game.


Bash backs are Fosters thing, and to a large part they've made it work. Theyre now one of the best teams in the world.


They boy's trucked it up a bit against Italy in the redzone, and against France, wasn't that effective without the right players probably.


Try and take a look at it this way. Dissapointed Havili and Blackadder were in the side? Havili despite clearly shown that he can't do what the team needs at 12 was kept on for the RWC. Back goes down and he brings in Blackadder who doesn't play. Refuses to drop Christie when he should and look who starts this season. Beauden Barret not playing well enough to keep his 10 jersey but we gotta keep him in the side. Weve only got one 8, we stuff developing another I'll just play Ardie every game.


This years team wasn't burdened overly with injuries but they were in every position Razor might have wanted to try and development, severely limiting options. I'm not defending Razor as there was also plenty of other opportunity to make up for it and he was a little gunshy, but I'm also not going to overly criticise him because he chose cohesion over a black slate.

How long are we going to keep blaming All Black failings on Ian Foster.

I think more and more people are on board with it being time to try alternatives, but then again, how would they have reacted to a loss against Italy? 😉

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