TOKYO – With star flyhalf Richie Mo’unga back for his last campaign, Brave Lupus Tokyo will kick off their bid for a championship “three-peat” when the Japan Rugby League One season opens this weekend.<\/p>\n
The Kobe Steelers host 2024-25 runners-up Spears Tokyo Bay in one of four matches on Saturday, while the Todd Blackadder-coached Brave Lupus start their season the following day at Ajinomoto Stadium against perennial contenders the Saitama Wild Knights.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old Mo’unga has announced he will return to the New Zealand Rugby fold after this season, his third in Japan, having spearheaded Brave Lupus to back-to-back titles while also winning the League One MVP award two years in a row.<\/p>\n
He will once again lead Brave Lupus alongside veteran back-row talisman Michael Leitch, but the club no longer has the services of Japan national team lock Warner Dearns, who has joined Wellington, New Zealand-based Super Rugby side the Hurricanes.<\/p>\n
The Frans Ludeke-coached Spears will aim for their first championship since 2022-23 with Springboks hooker Malcolm Marx once again leading their powerful forward pack, after being named 2025 World Rugby Player of the Year.<\/p>\n
Saitama finished fourth last season, having featured in every previous League One final, and will look for a fresh start under Atsushi Kanazawa, with longtime head coach Robbie Deans moving into an executive role at the club.<\/p>\n
The Wild Knights continue to boast one of the most talented lineups in the league, including Japan center Dylan Riley, and will look to show their championship credentials with a victory against Brave Lupus.<\/p>\n
The Steelers, featuring Japan No. 10 Lee Seung Sin, aim to continue their momentum after finishing third last season, while Shizuoka BlueRevs will try to build on their best-ever result of fifth.<\/p>\n
Following a disappointing 10th-place finish, star-studded Toyota Verblitz seek to live up to their billing, with Japan No. 8 Kazuki Himeno and playmaker Rikiya Matsuda back at full health after injury-interrupted seasons.<\/p>\n
The Central Japan club has also been buoyed by the return of star South Africa back-rower and former World Player of the Year Pieter-Steph du Toit, who was sidelined all last season by a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO – With star flyhalf Richie Mo’unga back for his last campaign, Brave Lupus Tokyo will kick off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-342144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}