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Tokyo Calling - Rugby 2019

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    Great match. Our lunch was delayed.

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      Do you think off the back of this Japan might get invited into the super 4 or what's it called? Or actually is battling to occasional wins against Scotland all fine and dandy but losing horribly to New Zealand week in week out not great? Would they be the Italy in the 6 nations, there?

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        Not my turf I know, but apparently they are now ranked 7th and have a lot of money behind their domestic game - arguably the southern hemisphere jumped the gun slightly by bringing in Argentina when Japan was the more obvious commercial gold mine.

        I've seen someone (connected in SRU circles admittedly) on Facebook tonight with a very good post comparing participation numbers in Scotland and Japan, the latter massively on top.

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          Japan has had a team in Super Rugby for a few years. Unfortunately they aren't very good:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunwolves

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            In part because the national team trained together for nine months before the tournament

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              Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
              Not my turf I know, but apparently they are now ranked 7th and have a lot of money behind their domestic game - arguably the southern hemisphere jumped the gun slightly by bringing in Argentina when Japan was the more obvious commercial gold mine.

              I've seen someone (connected in SRU circles admittedly) on Facebook tonight with a very good post comparing participation numbers in Scotland and Japan, the latter massively on top.
              I saw a tweet during the match comparing plucky underdogs Japan (pop.125M) with Scotland (pop.5M).

              Which is a joke but has a grain of truth to it.

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                Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post
                Do you think off the back of this Japan might get invited into the super 4 or what's it called? Or actually is battling to occasional wins against Scotland all fine and dandy but losing horribly to New Zealand week in week out not great? Would they be the Italy in the 6 nations, there?
                Liable to happen to any regular opponents of the AB's.

                That and they'd only play each other twice a year.

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                  Originally posted by Levin View Post

                  I saw a tweet during the match comparing plucky underdogs Japan (pop.125M) with Scotland (pop.5M).

                  Which is a joke but has a grain of truth to it.
                  GDP 4.872 trillion USD (2017) v $237.618 billion (2018 estimate). But also, I guess, Scotland are gradually being pushed to the periphery of the game's commercial centre whereas there's a financial incentive to pull Japan in, mirroring how their relative strengths in football have also changed for similar reasons. OTOH let's not exaggerate this: Japan were clinging on at home in the last 10 minutes, and although Japan dominated the first half, Scotland had 57% of territory in the second.

                  Furthermore, New Zealand contradict all population/GDP comparisons in a way that might be unique in world sport over such a long period.
                  Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 13-10-2019, 22:34.

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                    Such comparisons strike me as particularly ill conceived in a sport that New Zealand dominates and the US has yet again gone home without a point.

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                      Mainly because all the top US players play their own form of rugby in the NFL etc.

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                        A better comparison would be based on the number of youth players and professional clubs.

                        Even there, the US might look bad compared to New Zealand et al. The difference is that rugby players - and fans- in the US usually only come to it after they’ve tried our more popular sports and either decided they don’t like them or found they aren’t good enough to go far with it. And that assumes they are ever exposed to rugby at all. Even at the schools and universities where it’s fairly well-funded, it doesn’t have a profile anything close to American football or basketball.

                        I don’t know how it is in Japan, but I get the feeling it’s now in the top four sports there. Perhaps?
                        Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 14-10-2019, 00:01.

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                          Solid fourth after baseball, sumo, and football, especially after this tournament.

                          Basketball would be next among team sports, and golf and tennis are popular.

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                            That’s what I was guessing. Is sumo popular on the grassroots level or is it one of those things that lots of people watch but only a few try to do, like MMA or motorsports?

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                              Interestingly, USA are ranked 5th in women's rugby. Not sure why but I know from local experience that there is organized women's rugby in colleges:

                              https://www.world.rugby/rankings/wru?lang=en

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                                Yes, it’s a pretty big deal here. Penn State has one of the better teams and has won multiple national titles and the girl’s high school team has won the state championship.

                                It definitely has more of a future than women’s American football, which is barely a thing at all. It attracts the kind of women who like lifting weights and smashing into things. Other than MMA, there’s really no other sport that offers that.

                                But high school teams, let alone youth teams are rare, so few women get the chance to play before college. As I mentioned before, a friend of mine in college played for the US in the World Cup. She’d never seen rugby before college.

                                So the US is fifth, but it will have to grow a lot, especially at the youth level, for the US to ever be higher than fifth.

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                                  Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                  That’s what I was guessing. Is sumo popular on the grassroots level or is it one of those things that lots of people watch but only a few try to do, like MMA or motorsports?
                                  It is reasonably popular in schools, and just as there are well recognised baseball and rugby high schools, there are schools with very highly regarded sumo programmes.

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                                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                    Have we done predictions / are we doing predictions?

                                    Mine are:
                                    Quarter finalists
                                    Ireland, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, England, France, Wales, Australia

                                    Semi finalists
                                    Ireland, New Zealand, England, Australia

                                    Finalists
                                    New Zealand, England

                                    Winners
                                    New Zealand
                                    I was right on the 8 who went through. Now we know who is actually playing each other I'm revising my latter stages predictions (because those 4 predictions are playing each other in 2 of the QFs)


                                    England v Australia ~ England to win
                                    New Zealand v Ireland ~ New Zealand to win
                                    Wales v France ~ Wales to win
                                    Japan v South Africa ~ Japan to win (why not, eh?)


                                    SF England v New Zealand ~ New Zealand to win
                                    SF Wales v Japan ~ Wales to win

                                    3rd place play off - England to win

                                    Final New Zealand to win

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                                      The kick-off times are not friendly to US viewers. 6.15am OK, 3.15 not OK. 5am for the final - yes, but I'll have to spend the night in the spare bedroom to avoid disturbing Mrs S.

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                                        It's even worse on the West Coast.

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                                          Bundee Aki's World Cup is over, unsurprisingly, as he is banned for three games.

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                                            Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                                            It's even worse on the West Coast.
                                            Yeah, its brutal.

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                                              I think I can record the semis and final from NBCSN and watch them as live when I wake up (avoiding the web), but not for the QFs; although NBC archives the games, I will encounter spoilers to get to them.

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                                                England-Australia and Japan-South Africa are on NBCSN. The other two are NBCSN Gold only.

                                                I suspect you might be able to avoid spoilers by bookmarking the NBCSN Gold page and then just hitting that rather than going on NBCsports.com.

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                                                  With no players absent through injury the Wales XV pretty much picks itself :

                                                  1. Wyn Jones (Scarlets) (19 Caps)
                                                  2. Ken Owens (Scarlets) (70 Caps)
                                                  3. Tomas Francis (Exeter Chiefs) (46 Caps)
                                                  4. Jake Ball (Scarlets) (39 Caps)
                                                  5. Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys) (131 Caps) (CAPT)
                                                  6. Aaron Wainwright (Dragons) (16 Caps)
                                                  7. Justin Tipuric (Ospreys) (69 Caps)
                                                  8. Josh Navidi (Cardiff Blues) (22 Caps)
                                                  9. Gareth Davies (Scarlets) (48 Caps)
                                                  10. Dan Biggar (Northampton Saints) (76 Caps)
                                                  11. Josh Adams (Cardiff Blues) (18 Caps)
                                                  12. Hadleigh Parkes (Scarlets) (22 Caps)
                                                  13. Jonathan Davies (Scarlets) (79 Caps)
                                                  14. George North (Ospreys) (89 Caps)
                                                  15. Liam Williams (Saracens) (61 Caps)

                                                  Replacements:

                                                  16. Elliot Dee (Dragons) (26 Caps)
                                                  17. Rhys Carre (Saracens) (3 Caps)
                                                  18. Dillon Lewis (Cardiff Blues) (19 Caps)
                                                  19. Adam Beard (Ospreys) (17 Caps)
                                                  20. Ross Moriarty (Dragons) (38 Caps)
                                                  21. Tomos Williams (Cardiff Blues) (13 Caps)
                                                  22. Rhys Patchell (Scarlets) (17 Caps)
                                                  23. Owen Watkin (Ospreys) (19 Caps)

                                                  With Jonathan Davies and Parkes having had recent injuries, our only other centre Watkin is preferred to Halfpenny on the bench and Patchell will cover full back as well as fly half.

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                                                    Nicky Smith has gone from first choice to third in this RWC, the decision not to take Rob Evans is looking poor now as Carre didn't even start against Uruguay. Bar that the side picks itself with Adam Beard back on the bench. I'm concerned about our front five replacements and cannot be confident as France are generally tough opponents for us.

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