The Japanese are coming

Nice to see administrative bodies setting themselves real targets.
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Apr 3, 2007

The Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) is set to send a wave of young players to New Zealand and Australia in a bid to raise the level of the Japanese game.

"We have already selected three to go to New Zealand and hopefully that will increase to about 10 this year," said the JRFU's chief media officer Yasutaka Nagai.

"The basic plan is the forwards will go to New Zealand and the backs to Australia. We hope to continue this trend this year and beyond with increased numbers."

Locks Tomoaki Taniguchi of Toyota Motors and Secom's Manabu Suzuki along with Chuo university flanker Shinya Makabe have been chosen to go to New Zealand.

The trio will take part in a player development programme in New Zealand.

The JRFU devised the plan under the so-called "quarter-final project" as part of a long-term goal to reach the knockout stages of the 2011 World Cup.


Source: Reuters

Good luck with that... reaching the knockout stages that it.

Boof could look after the forwards instead of N.Z

With 4050 Clubs and 4th in the world for Senior Male Players with 42,210 (13,110 more than Australia!), it is great to see some progress being made for the development of the elite level in Japan.
They may be at their traditional level of competitivness for France however I am confident they will get stronger between now and 2011.
By then it would be great to think that the likes of Argentina, USA, Canada, the PI's, Romania etc will all be very competitive and perhaps getting the odd upset over the top eight nations.
I dare say there will be some interest from WA Clubs to see if they can host some of these enthusiastic young men!

sounds good hope some can get into the provisinal comp