Japan’s Sunwolves are to be axed from Super Rugby after next season, the governing body said yesterday, dealing a heavy blow to Asian rugby union just six months before Japan hosts the continent’s first Rugby World Cup.
The Sunwolves were introduced in 2016 to bring rugby union to new markets, but South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina Rugby (SANZAAR) said it was not prepared to bankroll the perennial wooden-spooners after the Japan Rugby Football Union withdrew financial support.
However, the union denied pulling funding for the team, saying instead that it had been unable to agree terms with SANZAAR.
Photo: Darren Yamashita-USA Today
After the Sunwolves’ departure, the southern hemisphere competition is to return to 14 teams and a round-robin format from 2021, scrapping the unpopular conference system.
SANZAAR chief executive Andy Marinos said the Sunwolves decision was “not taken lightly” and held open the possibility of a Super Rugby Asia-Pacific competition also involving Pacific nations, the Americas and Hong Kong.
“SANZAAR was advised by the Japan Rugby Football Union in early March that they would no longer be in a position to financially underwrite the Sunwolves’ future participation post-2020,” he said in a statement.
Sunwolves chief executive Yuji Watase said that he had feared for the team since Super Rugby’s ambitious expansion to 18 sides was reversed last season.
“We always knew we needed to be competitive and win more games. Ever since Super Rugby went from 18 to 15 teams we were concerned about our future,” Watase told reporters in Tokyo. “When you see videos of a kid crying with joy because the Sunwolves won a game it’s just such a shame and I feel so sorry.”
Reports say much of the opposition to Asia’s first Super Rugby side came from South Africa, whose teams disliked the long trips to Tokyo and Singapore for the Sunwolves’ home games.
Kyodo news agency said SANZAAR had told the Sunwolves to pay a “non-negotiable” participation fee of about ¥1 billion (US$9 million) a year to stay in Super Rugby.
The Tokyo-based team were introduced with great fanfare along with Argentina’s Jaguares in 2016 as Super Rugby, seeking new audiences, expanded to 18 teams.
Both teams survived the cull when the tournament shrank back to 15 sides last year, after the sprawling, time zone-hopping new format proved unwieldy for teams and fans.
However, results were slow in coming for the Sunwolves, who were embarrassed 92-17 by the Cheetahs in their first season and lost 94-7 to the Lions in 2017.
They won away for the first time earlier this month, beating the Waikato Chiefs 30-15 for just their seventh victory in 51 games.
In yesterday’s only match, the Blues edged the Highlanders 33-26.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier