All you ever wanted to know about Japanese rugby but were afraid to ask

Speakers: Yūichirō Fujii (Director, Japanese National Rugby Team), Reg Clark (CEO, Rhino Sport & Leisure Ltd), Satoshi Takehana (Rugby writer)

Summary

In anticipation of the England versus Japan match on 12th November, please join us for an evening of Japanese Rugby with our guest of honour, the director of the Japanese National Rugby Team, Yūichirō Fujii. We will be looking at the history of rugby in Japan, at the match preparation and at rugby’s role in sports diplomacy. There will also be time to ask questions of the panel. The evening will culminate in a sake reception. 

Event recording

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Speaker biographies

Yūichirō Fujii is the director of the Japanese National Rugby Team. He was a professional rugby player and the head coach of the Meiji University team, whom he lead to victory in the Tokai league in 2003. He became the manager of the Fukuoka Sanix Blues in 2005. In 2019 he took over as the director of the national team and led the Brave Blossoms into the top eight. It was the first time that Japan had scored so highly. As rugby player, his position was centre three-quarter back (CTB) and wing three-quarter back (WTB). His son, Tatsuya Fujii, is playing professionally for Munakata Sanix Blues.

Reg Clark is CEO of Rhino Sport & Leisure Ltd.  After graduating in Modern History and winning two rugby Blues at Oxford University, in 1980 he joined Kobe Steel to work and play for the company rugby team from 1980-83.  He had a city career with Swiss Bank Corporation and JP Morgan before re-joining Kobe Steel as European Finance Director from 1988 to 1997. In 2016 he received the Foreign Ministers Commendation Award from the government of Japan for services to UK- Japan relations. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Nihon University in Tokyo. 

Satoshi Takehana is a rugby writer covering European rugby related topics for Japanese publishers including Rugby Magazine Japan, Number Sports Graphics and Yahoo Sports Navi. He is a Japanese ghost writer to current England head coach Eddie Jones for “プレッシャーの力 (Power Of Pressure)”, published in 2020. He also has a city career as IT consultant in the finance sector, and holds an MBA from Nyenrode Business School in Netherlands.

Chair

Fabio Gygi is the chair of the Japan Research Centre at SOAS. He is an anthropologist of Japan by training with an interest in material culture, gender, disposal and robots and has written articles on animism, dolls, hoarding and Marie Kondo. He is a keen practitioner of martial arts and counts rugby among those.