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Super Rugby PacificSunwolves

Sunwolves eyeing up season from hell despite recording 53-point pre-season win

(Photo by Toru Hanai/Getty Images)

The ugly step-child of Super Rugby, the Sunwolves, have started off their 2020 campaign with a 53-point win in their first and only pre-season match – but it hardly bodes well for the season ahead.

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Japan’s sole Super Rugby side are playing in their final season before being culled from the competition.

In four years, the Sunwolves have managed just eight victories. That, combined with their tendency to use foreign players and the Japan Rugby Football Union’s resistance to shelling out costs for the side, have made them an impossible fit for a rugby competition that was once considered the best in the world.

Results will be equally as tough to come by in 2020, with the Top League’s shift from the end of the year to the start of the year meaning that the Sunwolves have cobbled together a completely new side for this season.

Gone are the likes of Hayden Parker, Shota Horie, Lappies Labuschagne and Dan Pryor, who all added plenty to the Sunwolves’ cause.

The new side had their first hit-out on Saturday, thumping a team of mostly semi-professionals, the ‘Challenge Barbarians’, 81-28.

Continue reading below…

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Of the Sunwolves’ starters, just three were born in Japan. The extended eighteen-man bench included a further six Japan-natives.

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Impressively, Tongan wing Siosaia Fifita dotted down for four tries while former Reds and Waratahs representative Tautalatasi Tasi scored three of his own from the bench.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7rh_gkgkhc/

New coach Naoya Okubo (the Sunwolves’ fifth in as many years) will have been pleased with his charges’ attacking intent, but a run against the Challenge Barbarians will hardly prepare Super Rugby’s whipping boys for their arduous (and, frankly, somewhat pointless) season ahead.

Disappointingly, considerably fewer fans turned up to see the thrashing in Kita-Kyushu than have been in attendance for this year’s Top League, which is laden with top players from around the world.

The Sunwolves will open their season with three games in a row against Australian opposition, starting with the Rebels in Tokyo next Saturday.

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WATCH: New Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has fronted up to the media.

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Comments on RugbyPass

F
Flankly 4 minutes ago
Robbie Fleck: Key to South African Champions Cup success rests with Rassie

Not sure I understand. Its not obvious how you prioritize URC, Champions/Challenge Cup, Internationals, and rest. And if you add player development plans (eg experience of positions, playing conditions, game plans, opponents playing styles etc) it becomes harder. Additionally, consistency of selection helps with making adjustments to systems and tactics, so that further constrains your options. Travel challenges don’t make it easier.


Jake White has effectively decided that he would rather have a chance of success in one competition, at the expense of the other competition, than a near certainty of heroic failure in both. And he has implied that over time he plans to build enough depth to give the Bulls a chance in both the URC and Champions Cup simultaneously.


Not sure what is being proposed here that is supposedly a better plan.

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IkeaBoy 10 minutes ago
'He's a special player': Lawrence Dallaglio backs Henry Pollock to be Lions bolter

Indeed he has STARTED more test games at 8. I actually said he’s PLAYED more games at 7, though. Do you remember where he tended to play when he came on wearing #20?


He likely will select on the basis of win ratios. IRE and ENG won 4, SCOT won 2 and WAL won none. 6 Irish, 6 English, 3 Scottish seems about right for the starting 15.


Yeah, I think he’ll definitely bring Beirne to have as a utility lock/flanker. Doris’ discipline and leadership has maybe rocked a little this year but he’s still the best 8 in the game.

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IkeaBoy 35 minutes ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

Soccer on a rugby forum…


“Experience is strongly correlated with age, at least among the managers that I named”…


Slot and Arteta are among the youngest you named. They have the least experience as a manager (6 years each). Espírito Santo and Pep are the oldest and have the most (12 years + each). Pep is pushing 17 years experience, all at elite level. There are plenty around his age that won’t have the same level of experience. Plenty.


The younger breed you mentioned (Arteta in particular) may not coach at elite level beyond the next few years if they continue to not win trophies. Age and experience is not always a nice, steady gradient.


The only trend in English soccer is that managers don’t stay on as long with the same club. Due to the nature of the game and the assumed, immediate performance bounce of replacing them at the first sign of trouble. Knee-jerk style. Test rugby has no clear pattern of that.


Why would you dismiss a paradox? Contradictions are often revealing. Or is that too incoherent?

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BA 55 minutes ago
The raw data that proves Super Rugby Pacific is currently a cut above

You can’t compare the “quality”of competitions till they play against each other … what we do know is that nz teams filled with ABs and ABs can go at it with anyone in the world and these other teams and players are competing so would say the quality is high wouldn’t you? How are you determining that URC or top 14 is higher quality than Super I’m guessing you mean in the quality of players and execution ? Are you just assuming that it is because…. I would say it’s much of a muchness and the only indicator for that is international rugby and that is hella even

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Deanbeckette 1 hour ago
Brumbies on high alert: Len Ikitau’s stark warning over ex-boss

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0 Go to comments
C
CV 1 hour ago
'Matches between Les Bleus and the All Blacks are rarely for the faint-hearted.'

Indeed.

They’ve started to manage players better in France. Clubs and the FFR have now found a middle ground that works, especially when it comes to player welfare. In the past, French test players had to play the top 14 games in the weeks the 6N was off, no more. They don’t rest their foreign players though. Players like Kinghorn and Capuozzo still played for Toulouse between 6N weekends when French players didn’t have to. It has


Kinghorn and Jack Willis have become world class at Toulouse. Players get better in France. REC nations have heaps of players in the ProD2, it shows.

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NB 1 hour ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

He would have made all the diff.

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NB 1 hour ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

I’m not sure you appreciate the look that was his team missing their own WC.

I wish I didn’t. I experienced it first hand.


Coaching Aussie would be more a pure coaching choice, finding a team which has a sympathy with the way you like to coach the game.

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NB 1 hour ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

Well Bruce Arians won the SB at 68 a few years ago and Belichick was still at the top of his game at the age of 66. AFAIK both Larry Brown and Phil Jackson won NBA titles in their mid 60’s. So it’s pretty common for coaches to be winning at the top level then.


Americans value experience because their professional sports are all far older than rugby, it will just take us a while to catch up. Those Yoda guys are like gold dust.

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E
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NB 1 hour ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

Well done indeed DW🤣👍

143 Go to comments
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NB 1 hour ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

I think he was the owner, Matthew Lillard was the young GM, which tells you all you need to know!


But yeah they were cardboard caricatures of Moneyball guys who looked at their laptops and never went to games…

143 Go to comments
I
IkeaBoy 1 hour ago
Bill Sweeney pens letter to RFU members: 'It has not been an easy time for me personally'

Poor guy. Really seems to have hurt his feelings that plenty know he’s useless in his role. Stealing a living.

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4 Go to comments
C
CM 1 hour ago
Bill Sweeney pens letter to RFU members: 'It has not been an easy time for me personally'

Shame on those who voted to keep Sweeney in his lucrative job. I have seen NO improvement in English rugby since his appointment. Just an increase in his bank balance.

3 Go to comments
f
fl 2 hours ago
'He's a special player': Lawrence Dallaglio backs Henry Pollock to be Lions bolter

“The debate was in the context of the Lions squad. Multiple club and national coaches have chosen him (considerably) more often at 7, so there’s enough people fancy he’s good in the role.”

He’s started (considerably) more international matches at 8 than at 7. So while plenty of people fancy he’s a good club 7, international coaches haven’t seemed to agree!


“The win rates are vitally important for this Lions tour”

I agree. But you can’t just select players on the basis of their individual win rates.


“Farrell is a straight forward, no nonsense type of guy. He’ll probably pick conservatively and with guys in their proven positions. He hasn’t the time for bolters or shock calls. Not with the touring schedule they have.”

Yes, I was thinking more England selections. For the Lions tour then if Doris and Tom Curry both start then Earl becomes a pretty viable option at 7. But if Doris ever gets injured, or Farrell wants either Chessum or Tadgh Beirne at 6, then Earl will move to 8.

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dw 2 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

I emailed Roy and HG some suggestions recently and they took the p*** out of me on air for being a rugby fan rather than a fan of “the greatest game of all”. Very proud moment.

143 Go to comments
C
Cantab 2 hours ago
I do worry seeing the Crusaders get manhandled by Moana Pasifika

I will reserve judgement until after Crusaders match with the Drua in Lautoka. Playing there is an acid test for any team as Drua are notoriously hard to beat there for anyone. A good win there will go a long way to restoring their reputation. Seems this years Crusaders run hot and cold so they really need consistency especially on defence as they concede too many points and penalties at times

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Ed the Duck 2 hours ago
Why NZR's Ineos settlement maybe the most important victory they'll enjoy this year

The proof of that particular pudding will be there for all to see! The dynamics behind Ratcliffe’s decision just got a whole lot more challenging from yesterday…

5 Go to comments
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OJohn 2 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

Heaven forbid fair dinkum elite athlete Australians are allowed to offer an opinion on Australian rugby. Strewth ……

143 Go to comments
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