Division One

Robbie Deans and Dave Rennie go way back.

Both are from the same playing era in New Zealand in the 1980s, when the Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights boss was a star fullback for Canterbury in New Zealand’s national provincial championship (NPC), and the Kobelco Kobe Steelers coach a rock of the Wellington midfield, while the coaching paths of the pair have trodden similar passageways.

After winning both the NPC and Ranfurly challenge Shield in charge of Canterbury, Deans won five Super Rugby titles with the (Canterbury) Crusaders, prior to embarking on an international career which brought him to the Wild Knights via a stint which he ended as the longest-serving Wallaby coach.

Rennie coached both Wellington and Manawatu in the NPC, winning the title in 2000 when the side from New Zealand’s capital, boasting Christian Cullen and Jonah Lomu, edged the Deans-coached Canterbury in the final, before later taking the (Waikato) Chiefs to Super titles back-to-back in 2012 and 2013.

International opportunity beckoned with Rennie following his compatriot into the Wallaby job via a stint with Glasgow Warriors in Scotland, before he landed with the Chiefs’ close associates in Japan, Kobe.

The two men faced each other for the first time in League One last season, with the Wild Knights coming from behind to win 28-18, ending Kobe’s four-match unbeaten run on what proved a pivotal turning point for Rennie’s men.

Kobe managed only three wins from their final seven as their semi-final bid faltered.

Twelve months on, the Steelers head to Kumagaya off the back of their best performance of the season, having flattened Toyota Verblitz 63-21 to move up to fifth on the point’s table.

They are still a massive 15 points behind the unbeaten Wild Knights though, with Deans’s outfit virtually assured of a playoffs spot already, despite the season having only just reached its halfway stage.

Despite issues at flyhalf where the Yamasawa brothers, Takuya and Kyohei, have been dogged by injury, the Wild Knights’ remain unbeaten, although both second-placed Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo and Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo-Bay in third, departed Kumagaya having failed to take the gilt-edged opportunities they had created to crack Saitama’s almost impregnable fortress.

Just two points separate those sides ahead of Saturday’s vitally important date at Kagoshima, on which their hopes of a top two finish – and its’ first-round bye in the playoffs – may rest.

Although they played with fire, and narrowly avoided being burnt, during last weekend’s one-point thriller against Ricoh Black Rams Tokyo, Todd Blackadder’s defending champions have lost just once, ironically to an opponent, Shizuoka BlueRevs, who the Spears put 62 points around in their most recent outing.

The 2022-23 title-winners have also dropped just one game, separated from Toshiba by virtue of their 26-26 draw with Tokyo Sungoliath earlier in the campaign.

The fact that they have managed to reach this point without their leading point-scorer and backline maestro, Wallaby Bernard Foley, for parts of the campaign, and have added to their attacking firepower with the addition of one-cap All Black three-quarter Shaun Stevenson, reinforces the more rounded unit Toshiba’s title predecessors have become.

Shaun Stevenson of Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo-Bay

Sungoliath have also honed their overall capabilities since a slow start to the season forced them to wait until the fifth week to gain their first win.

Having sustained just one loss from the last seven, Kosei Ono’s charges are now threatening the top six, which they can break into if they beat Yokohama Canon Eagles on Sunday.

While the five-time champions of Japan are on an upwards swing and welcomed back All Black backrower Sam Cane to their ranks last time, the Eagles are flatlining, with three losses in as many weeks which will have their coach Keisuke Sawaki hard at work trying to rectify their inefficiencies.

If anyone can, it is Sawaki, who already has a pair of titles under his belt after guiding Saturday’s rivals to an unbeaten season in 2016-17 and backing that up with the 2017-18 championship, which he has followed up by taking his current charges to back-to-back semi-finals, with a stint guiding the Sunwolves in between.

Although the Black Rams found themselves in last season's Replacement Battle, which they negotiated comfortably, they did boost their confidence heading into the relegation series by bowling Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Sagamihara Dynaboars, which they will aiming to do again when the two sides open the Division One action in Saturday’s lunchtime kick off.

For all of Toshiba’s class across the park last weekend, Black Rams skipper TJ Perenara was unquestionably the best player on the field, which will make him a marked man as the Dynaboars attempt to re-set following back-to-back defeats.

Ricoh Black Rams skipper TJ Perenara

Mie Honda Heat achieved their re-set against the Dynaboars two weeks ago, and after making it successive wins by upsetting Yokohama, the Pablo Matera-led side will be looking to capitalise on any psychological scarring that remains in the Shizuoka camp following their dramatic collapse against Kubota.

While BlueRevs winger Malo Tuitama remains the joint-highest try-scorer in the section with 10, the 28-year-old has gone scoreless in the last two match days, and Shizuoka will be desperate to get the Brave Blossoms flyer started again, playing an opponent against whom he scored twice when the teams last met.

Although Urayasu D-Rocks is bottom of the division, they can at least point to being more recently in the winner’s circle than their next opponent, with their sole win three weeks ago, whereas Verblitz have dropped their last five.

First season D-Rocks coach Greig Laidlaw has had his hands full endeavouring to help last term’s Division Two champions adjust to the higher grade, but losses by eight to Brave Lupus, and five last weekend against Sungoliath suggest his troops haven’t given up on avoiding the end-of-season relegation trap yet.

Beating the out-of-sorts Verblitz is an essential though, with the game equally important to Steve Hansen’s men, whose 42-point battering by Kobe won’t have done much for team morale.

While the absence of World Player of the Year Pieter Steph du Toit, and more recently Brave Blossoms skipper Kazuki Himeno, has hurt the cause, Verblitz has greater depth than most in the league, boasting more members of last year’s Brave Blossoms than any other club.

Unless performances and results improve, that statistic probably won’t be repeated when Eddie Jones assembles his next squad in June.

Division Two

The ‘your turn, my turn’ exchanges at the top of the section could continue when second-placed Toyota Industries Shuttles Aichi host Hino Red Dolphins on Saturday.

The Shuttles topped the table two weeks ago, while Red Hurricanes Osaka were on the sidelines, before conceding the lead last weekend, when the Kansai side beat the Red Dolphins while their closest rivals had their feet up.

With the Red Hurricanes having to wait another week for their next outing, the Shuttles can return to top spot with a win against an opponent they last faced three years ago, which finished in a 37-31 win.

Second from bottom, with just one-win, last season’s Division Three champions self-destructed last time with three yellow cards, which continued a pattern of inconsistency since they returned to the higher grade, having lost twice by five points or less, but turned in a poor performance during a 37-point defeat by NEC Green Rockets Tokatsu.

Inconsistent themselves, the Green Rockets meet a Kyushu Electric Power Kyuden Voltex outfit that dropped two places after last week’s loss to Hanazono Kintetsu Liners, although only four points separate third and fifth as the season reaches its midpoint in the division.

Kintetsu are gaining momentum after failing to win in their first three, but with only two places available in this season’s promotion/relegation series, still have plenty of work to do.

Currently seven points astern of second, Saturday’s game will see a Wallaby and an All Black go head-to-head, with Quade Cooper set to play a part off the bench for Hanazono while Lima Sopoaga will be looking to lift his teammates, after a disappointing start to their return to the division which has seen Shimizu Koto Blue Sharks win just twice, against the two sides currently ranked below them.

The round will be completed on March 8 when the Red Hurricanes visit Nippon Steel Kamaishi Seawaves on what is certain to be an emotional day in Iwate as the hosts remember the victims of the 2011 tsunami, which claimed an estimated 20,000 lives in the prefecture as a magnitude nine earthquake off the north-eastern coast triggered a 30-meter- wall of water that washed five kilometres inland.

Division Three

A top-of-the-table clash between Mazda SkyActivs Hiroshima and Sayama Secom Rugguts headlines Division three with

the latter heading to Kyushu seeking to avenge December’s 31-27 defeat.

SkyActivs have lost just once and will move towards one of equalling their total number of wins from the league’s first editions should they repeat that success, while also establishing a commanding break over their rivals in the title race.

Kurita Water Gush Akishima remains a factor in that conversation just, although a second defeat against SkyActivs means their hopes will almost certainly be gone should they lose again to a Yakult Levins side who defeated them 29-16 in the second round.

Coming off back-to-back wins, third-placed Chugoku Electric Power Red Regulions can close the gap on second if they can add to winless Le RIRO Fukuoka’s woes in the section’s third match on Sunday.