The Scotsman: Raising Japan's status tough task
In 104 years of rugby being played in the Land of the Rising Sun...the Japanese had been looked upon as an entertaining side who were simply too small to hack it at international level...Whether they will be able consistently to put in performances above their size is the multi-million-yen question.
...Numbers may be dropping, but Japan still has 129,626 registered players, including 65,248 senior adults, putting it fourth in the world in terms of the number of participants.
...Rugby is big business, with more than 400 foreigners plying their trade and a growing number of youngsters from the southern hemisphere studying in Japan on rugby scholarships, and though crowds are relatively small...belief is growing that fortunes are changing for the better.
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