Japan Sevens 2024

The Japan Rugby Football Union (Chairman: Masato Tsuchida, Minato-ku, Tokyo), a public interest incorporated foundation, held the Japan Sevens 2024 on Monday, July 15th (national holiday) at Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium in Tokyo.
This time, we spoke with Samurai Seven's coach Yoshida and the players.

Samurai Seven is a club team that was founded in March 2014 as Japan's first rugby sevens team. Former Japan national team player Yoshito Yoshida, who has been an evangelist for rugby sevens since it was designated an official event at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, began promoting the sport in 2013 and held tryouts in December, aiming to "develop talent to represent Japan."

■Director Interview

Yoshihito Yoshida, former Japan national rugby team member and world selection

Rugby sevens has become a major sport worldwide. The Hong Kong Sevens, held since 1976, has become a tournament that draws rugby fans from around the world. There are two main attractions to this sport. The first is the speed of the offense and defense. Compared to 15-a-side rugby, space is more easily created, allowing for dynamic ball and player movement. Watching players gracefully evade opponents is truly exhilarating. The second attraction is the low incidence of injuries. While 15-a-side rugby is a physical sport where players break through walls, seven-a-side rugby emphasizes agility in breaking through walls. As a result, there is less contact and fewer injuries. This is reassuring for parents who want their children to start playing rugby. Currently, the number of rugby players is about two orders of magnitude larger than the popular sports of soccer and baseball. We believe that the existence of seven-a-side rugby will have a positive effect on increasing the number of rugby players in the future.
The current Japanese national team, the Samurai Seven, was formed in 2014. In the 15-person system, there are not many athletes who can run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds. As a result, they held tryouts that were open to athletes from other sports in order to find undiscovered stars. Of today's starting members, two out of the seven are athletes who switched from other sports. The Samurai Seven still accepts athletes with high physical abilities, so if you are confident in your speed and agility, we encourage you to take part in a tryout.

■ Player interviews

Ninomiya Ryusei
I started playing rugby when I was in the third grade of elementary school, when my uncle, who ran a rugby school, invited me to try it. Seven-a-side rugby is played on the same court as 15-a-side rugby, but with less than half the number of players. This allows for a sense of speed in the offense and defense, which is what makes it so appealing. Many people have switched to seven-a-side rugby from other sports. In fact, about half of our team members switched from other sports. If you're confident in your speed or are interested in rugby, I would encourage you to give it a try.

Ryota Arai
Inspired by my father, I started playing rugby in the first grade of elementary school. At the time, I played a variety of sports, but I excelled in rugby more than any other sport, so I've been able to continue playing it to this day. In seven-a-side rugby, the team is called a "family," and it's a sport in which team unity is key. Because we have a small number of players, we value teamwork and are able to respond to fast-paced developments. You'll be able to watch seven-a-side rugby at the Paris Olympics this year, so I hope you'll come and see it because it's so much fun and you'll get hooked!

Katsunori Satake
I started playing rugby with my older brother when I was in kindergarten. After that, I continued playing rugby as a club activity, and in high school, I even became the best in Japan. I started playing seven-a-side rugby seriously after winning the ASICS Cup in my third year of high school. The appeal of seven-a-side rugby is that the number of players is small, so the focus is on each individual player. Each player can move around with the ball in a wide space, allowing players with different characteristics to play dynamically.

Kensuke Sato
I originally played American football at university, and started playing rugby in my first year at work. The reason I switched is because I thought that seven-a-side rugby was a sport where I could make the most of my speed and agility, which are my strengths. I think there are students who play 15-a-side rugby but have given up because they aren't big enough. I would like those students to try seven-a-side rugby. Even if you're small like me, if you have speed and agility you can challenge yourself at a higher level.

■ Voices of supporters
Hirohisa Sato, Chairman and CEO of Balnibarbi Co., Ltd.
I was attracted to the speedy pace of the game. Although 15-a-side and seven-a-side rugby use the same ball, they are completely different sports. In seven-a-side rugby, the game time is short and it is difficult to recover points, so one mistake can have a big impact on the outcome of the game. That's why seven-a-side rugby is so fun!

Hiroaki Kitano, Director, Japan Sport Education Academy
I was drawn to Coach Yoshida as a person. I sympathized with how he worked hard enough to be selected for the World Rugby Team despite not being particularly big as a player, and how he worked hard running around alone to promote rugby sevens as a coach, and I wanted to support him.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on July 15, 2024 by Yusuke Suzuki, a fourth-year student at Hosei University and Rinako Kitajima, a fourth-year student at Aoyama Gakuin University