Drop in International Match Performance in Contrast with Excitement over Domestic Rugby Scenes

Through the golden period around 1965, rugby popularity in Japan still continued. As for company rugby, the Nippon Steel Kamaishi Works enjoyed its golden era and conquered the Japan Rugby Championship eight times, including claiming its seventh unprecedented consecutive title during these 10 years. During this era, the team was led by Shigetaka Mori, Yuji Matsuo, and Koji Horaguchi, where Kamaishi's fishing boat flags flew at Tokyo's National Stadium. The champion of the All-Japan University Rugby Championship continued to take up the challenge against Kamaishi, but Kamaishi's high barriers withstood their effort. This accordingly showed the obvious difference in power between corporate rugby and university rugby.
The popularity of university rugby saw no end. The number of tickets issued for the Waseda-Meiji rugby match held at Tokyo's National Stadium in 1982 was 66,999, which was recorded as the peak attendance of the history of this stadium.
The Japan National Rugby Union Team started having frequent exchanges with mighty rugby nations because of receiving high reviews in the international community. This made their schedules quite busy and tight, and they endured a somewhat gloomy period experiencing crushing defeats on the international stage.
A match, where the Japan national team drove Wales into the corner 24-29 during an international tour in October 1983, put the brakes on the decline in their reputation. During this period, Japan's schedule became increasingly tight with tours of and the invitation of major rugby nations, holding the Asia Rugby Championship, the reinforcement tour of the Japan national A team, and the tour of the Japan U18 national team. Under such circumstances, this era of trial and error unavoidably leaves the impression that the reputation was ahead of the real ability of Japanese rugby.