Former Wallaby flyhalf Bernard Foley, who takes his final bow in Sunday’s Japan Rugby League One championship game, is one of rugby’s quiet achievers.

The 36-year-old, who has won club titles for each of Kubota Spears in Japan, and in Super Rugby with the NSW Waratahs, as well as steering Australia to the 2015 Rugby World Cup final, departs after the weekend’s tournament decider against Kobelco Kobe Steelers as the leading point-scorer in the League One.

Since the league inaugurated in 2022, Foley has accumulated 777 points from 72 appearances at an average of 10.7 per outing, playing a leading hand as Kubota secured its maiden nationwide league title, when he finished as the tournament's top point-scorer for the 2022-23 season.
This year he has added 181 to his career total, but more importantly, has led his side to its third final in four years.

Foley’s accuracy played a critical role in the tight semi-final victory over the Saitama Wild Knights, with his three from four off the tee, coupled with a three from three return from All Black Shaun Stevenson, seeing the Spears home 26-24 despite being out-scored four tries to two in an at times brutal game that produced a thrilling finish.

Although there are signs that Foley’s on-field deeds are not yet done, having been linked with a return to the Waratahs, his focus will not be stretching beyond an 80-minute appointment with the league’s top seeds, where the challenge that awaits is as large as any he has faced during his career.

Kubota enter the game against red hot Kobe having suffered two monumental blows against Saitama, with Springbok hooker Malcolm Marx (bicep) and South African-born Brave Blossoms forward Tyler Paul (foot) both ruled out after sustaining injuries.

Paul is arguably an even bigger loss than their Springbok talisman, with the backrower having made 293 tackles in the competition this year, 38 more than anyone else in the top-tier, and the most across all three divisions in the league.
The workaholic 31-year-old, who schooled at Duiwelskloof in South Africa and played three tests during his maiden season in the Brave Blossoms last year, has averaged 10 carries and a tick above 15 tackles through 19 appearances.

Frans Ludeke’s men also face the challenge of a quicker turnaround, after playing a day later than Kobe, who barely raised a sweat in the second half of their eye-popping 69-23 rout of Tokyo Sungoliath.
Remarkably, the Spears will field three players from Bloemfontein’s famed Grey College; second rower Merwe Olivier and centre Rikus Pretorius both start, while popular veteran Brave Blossoms backrower, Pieter ‘Lappies’ Labuschagne, will take his final bow for the club coming off the bench.

Prior to making a mess of their semi-final rivals, Kobe had given their title ambitions a big boost by beating Kubota 24-19 at Spears Edoriku Field in western Tokyo.
The win was significant on two counts: it ended the home side’s 25-game unbeaten run at the ground, while also being Kobe’s first win over their final opponent in the last eight attempts.

Dave Rennie, who is seeking to complete a three-year mission before he departs for New Zealand by returning the Japanese club title to Kansai, has a full muster to select from, with his test stars Brodie Retallick, Ardie Savea and Anton Lienert-Brown all primed and ready to go.

There will be much interest globally as to whether ex-Wallaby boss Rennie can win his first club title since 2013 before departing to take over the All Blacks, while his captain, Retallick, is just one short of tying Sungoliath winger Seiya Ozaki’s Division One record of 18 tries for a season.

That mark has already been equaled in Division Three, ironically by the All Blacks’ second-row counterpart at the newly promoted SkyActivs Hiroshima, the flame haired Scot, Andrew Davidson.

Retallick has also not been successful in the club arena since the second of his two Super Rugby titles in partnership with Rennie, while Savea, who is deemed by many as the All Black captain in waiting, has only won one club title previously, as part of the (Wellington) Hurricanes Super Rugby-winning roster in 2016.

The celebrated backrower gets another chance in a title game at Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium, setting up potentially an unforgettable two weeks, with Rennie set to unveil his first All Black squad on June 22.

Saturday’s playoff for third and fourth will be a special occasion for the Sungoliath club, and its star South African winger, Cheslin Kolbe.
The game allows the Sungoliath faithful, as well as the wider rugby community, to celebrate the contribution of Kolbe to the Japanese club game, with the Springbok having been a great national and global advertisement for the quality of the league, in terms of the excellence he has maintained, both for Sungoliath, but also when he has returned to the test arena.

He faces the Wild Knights in what will be his 44th and final appearance for the club, ending three seasons in which he has contributed 23 tries, and 321 points; 218 of which have been scored this term, including 10 tries.

Kolbe is the competition's leading point-scorer this season, 24 ahead of BlackRams Tokyo flyhalf Ichigo Nakakusu, and 37 ahead of the third-placed Foley.
While last weekend was a massive disappointment, Sungoliath can still ‘rescue’ something from their schizophrenic season by finishing third, which would be an improvement on their quarterfinal exit last year.
It is also the position Kobe finished last term, providing a base from which they have kicked on this year.

Kolbe’s Springbok teammate Lood de Jager will make a belated appearance for the Wild Knights in the playoff, having not featured in League One due to injury.
The 33-year-old, who has appeared on 40 occasions for the Wild Knights, last played in early November, when he was sent off for a dangerous tackle during South Africa’s test with France, being handed a four-match suspension that ruled him out of the remainder of the Springbok’s European tour.
De Jager, who will be back with Saitama next year, subsequently underwent hip surgery before returning to his club.

Even though they have won their last nine games against Sungoliath, the battered, bruised and psychologically wounded Wild Knights could be vulnerable after Sunday’s shattering defeat, although they have been boosted by the return of their international second rower, while powerhouse backrower Ben Gunter has also been cleared to play, after he was withdrawn from the semi-final early in the second half.
Saitama lost the playoff in similar circumstances last year.

Previous Final Results –

• 2022: Saitama Wild Knights 18, Tokyo Sungoliath 12
• 2022-23: Kubota Spears 17, Saitama Wild Knights 15
• 2023-24: Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo 24, Saitama Wild Knights 20
• 2024-25: Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo 18, Kubota Spears 13

Over 180,000 people attended the first four finals of League One, with the 33,604 crowd for the decider in the inaugural edition, where the season had been affected by the global pandemic, being the smallest gathering.

Attendance for the championship game has topped 50,000 in each of the last two seasons, with the record set in the 2023-24 decider when 56,486 patrons were at the National Stadium in Tokyo to see Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo edge out Saitama Wild Knights in a cliff-hanger to win their maiden title.
Advanced ticket sales suggest that the championship game for the fifth edition of the league could also surpass the 50,000-mark in attendance.