New Zealand Exchange Report

Three players—Prop Ryunosuke Momoji, Prop/Hooker Taiga Kawasaki, and Flanker Jingo Murata have been on a rugby study tour in Invercargill, on New Zealand's South Island, since early June.

Momoji and Jingo are playing for the Invercargill Blues, while Taiga is with Pirates Old Boys. The three are renting a house and living together.

In late June, the club rugby season reached its climax, with the playoff teams decided. Unfortunately, the Blues failed to qualify after the league stage, while Taiga’s team finished second and advanced to the final four. In the final league match on 27^th of June, the Blues hosted Taiga’s Pirates Old Boys, but the visitors won 47–0. It was also a chance for all three players to be on the field together, but Jingo missed the match through illness, and Momoji had to switch to hooker at the last minute after the starting No. 2 was unable to play.

With the Blues' club season now over, Momoji and Jingo have continued training with Pirates Old Boys, while Taiga focuses on the playoffs. All three are also participating in the Southland representative team's (Stags) High Performance programme and will remain until mid-July. On their days off, they have been making trips to Queenstown and Dunedin, enjoying life in New Zealand.

From the house the three players share, it takes less than ten minutes by car to reach the Blues' ground. Taiga's Pirate Old Boys ground is only three minutes away by bicycle.

"Miki, who studied here last year, left his bicycle behind, so I've been riding that."

Before leaving Japan, he expected to gain experience as a prop, but Pirate Old Boy's hooker suffered a season-ending injury, so the coach asked him to play hooker instead.

"Being able to play across the front row has always been one of my strengths, so it hasn't really been much different from Japan."

Every Thursday, Pirate Old Boys holds a team dinner after training in the clubhouse. The forwards, backs, and coaches take turns bringing the food.

"The first time it was the forwards' turn, I didn't know what to bring, so I asked the coach. He said, 'Just bring a whole roast chicken and some bread.' Every supermarket in New Zealand feels like Costco—they all sell whole roast chickens and meat pies. Going to the supermarket is fun in itself."

He is the only Japanese player in the team. At first there was little conversation, but recently he has become much more comfortable communicating during the team dinners.

"It's getting really good. After training everyone gets together to eat. It's fun, and I think it's a great tradition."

Like Momoji, he also had to adapt to the muddy playing conditions.

"The soil is very clay-like, so every time we scrum, we have to check the mud on our boots. You can't scrum as low as you do in Japan, so you have to stay a bit higher to avoid slipping. Since poor footing is normal here, referees don't often penalise teams for pushing, but I usually manage to win one penalty every game. Even though I'm playing hooker, I think it's going pretty well."

After the final league match against the Blues on the 27^th of June, Pirate Old Boys advanced to the playoffs. Many people expect the championship to come down to league leaders Barbarians and second-placed Pirate Old Boys.

"When Kaisei Tamura was the first Verblitz player to come to Pirate Old Boys, they won the championship. During Oyabu's and Miki's years they finished runners-up. This year I want us to win."

He hopes to return to Verblitz with a championship title in hand.