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<\/p>\nVIDEO: Japan delivered one of the cruelest blows in his career, but then Jesse Kriel found renewal by embracing Japan\u2019s culture and lifestyle, where he has played for the past seven years.<\/p>\n
The Springboks\u2019 loss against Japan in the 2015 World Cup was that moment for the seasoned Springbok, but rather than dwelling on the disappointment, he moved to the country and realised how much that victory meant to the Japanese.<\/p>\n
Since then, he has embraced the culture, learned to speak the language, and has grown as a person and a player.<\/p>\n
His first stint came in 2015 when he joined the Red Hurricanes. The following season, he joined the Canon Eagles, and he has been there ever since.<\/p>\n
Remembering the moment he realised the game was lost, Kriel told Rugby365 on Wednesday it truly was one of the most disappointing days of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that game was a turning point in Japanese rugby, almost petrol on the fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went on to play a three-month stint at Red Hurricanes afterwards, and the craze for rugby just got massive,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really grew the game, as bad as the result was and as disappointing as that was \u2013 it was probably one of the most disappointing days in my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe older and more mature you get, the more you understand what it has done for rugby. In that sense, it\u2019s been good,\u201d he said, adding that reflection after the fact with a realisation of the magnitude of an event.<\/p>\n
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When he moved to Japan, he was struck by the immense interest the moment had sparked.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople in Japan are obsessed with rugby, and it\u2019s really grown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough day, but on the other side, you move and live in Japan and you see.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made statues of the guy [that scored the winning try] and a video, \u2018The Miracle of Brighton\u2019, so it was really a miracle for them and an underdog story that kind of took off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the years, Kriel has made many friends in the Land of the Rising Sun, and he expects to see quite a few familiar faces among the Brave Blossoms when the two teams face each other at Wembley on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there will be two players from my club that might be playing, the winger Takuya Uchida, he is very good.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe captained the Sevens team at the Olympics and he is probably the closest player I have seen to Cheslin Kolbe and then the prop Ryosuke Iwaihara, he is very handy and a good player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope that they are part of the team, it would be good to come up against some current team mates.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then I\u2019ve got a lot of friends that are playing at other clubs that I\u2019ve been playing years with, I have been going on seven years in Japan now.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou make some good friends and you have some tough battles with other guys out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we asked him how fluent his Japanese is, the answer came in Japanese. He was modest about his grasp of the language, but it is rumoured that the farm boy from KwaZulu-Natal is almost fluent in the Asian tongue.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI can speak enough to get by. I\u2019ve been there a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got an unbelievable Japanese teacher who is also passionate about rugby and probably one of the biggest supporters of our club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been nice to be able to learn and speak a bit of Japanese just to communicate better with my teammates and get to know them on a different level.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Kriel, his knowledge of Japanese might help the Springboks in the game, even if he picks up only one minute detail of a move here or there.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt might help in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think maybe some of the terms they use might strike me when you hear something here or there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does sometimes flick a light in your head that they could be doing something. In this game, the margins are so small, anything can help.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we will see if it gives us any joy on the field. Our ears are always open on the field, have to be,\u201d he said smiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Japan delivered one of the cruelest blows in his career, but then Jesse Kriel found renewal by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-233032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}