Japan may be something a culture shock to some, but yesterday was maybe a little too familiar.
Steady rain throughout the day took the edge off the late summer heat but as Scotland’s Pete Horne put it, it was just like Glasgow in July – “it’s quite muggy and it’s chucking it down”.
Scotland came up after a week spent acclimatising at 30 plus degree temperatures in Nagasaki to the capital where they’ll play two of their pool games and (hopefully) a quarter-final.
With Sunday’s opponents Ireland, favourites New Zealand, South Africa, France, Argentina and the opening game between Japan and Russia all in Tokyo and Yokohama this weekend, it really feels like battle is about to be joined.
Only perhaps unsurprisingly, the 30 million metropolis has easily sucked up the support of these countries and unless you are attached to it, you’d struggle to guess the tournament’s going on.
This Rugby World Cup seems pretty much a rare example of before the Lord Mayor’s Show. Most of the Tokyo’s branding – from the minute you reach airport arrivals – is not promoting RWC but next year, when the city hosts the Olympics.
A happy effect of this is that a great deal of the city’s signage and directions have been anglicised in advance of the games. This has the added advantage of helping confused Scottish journalists find their way around the transport system and to the European chain restaurants (not this one, obviously, I’m fully integrating with the native culture).
I’m told that there’s something like 100,000 registered rugby players in Japan, compared to less than 50,000 in Scotland (at the last count, Fiji and noted rugby super power Malaysia had more players than we do). But of course the true comparison takes into account population – per 100 of population, Scotland has a rate of 0.91, Japan just 0.08.
This is definitely the least rugby-centric nation to have hosted a World Cup, although the way local communities have embraced “their” teams at training camps across the country – 15,000 turned out to watch Wales train, for example – seems to suggest a degree of interest.
Either that, or perhaps it’s just the Japanese flair for organisation. Certainly World Rugby’s hopes of building a lucrative new market here by bringing the World Cup are ambitious – most of the newspapers and TV are definitely much more interested just now in the autumn Sumo tournament and the conclusion of the local baseball season.
And the enthusiasm we have seen can be sort of misplaced. Stuart Hogg, unquestionably the poster boy of Scottish rugby, was asked at a tournament launch function to sign a poster below an image of WP Nel, the tight-head prop. And that was after the autograph hound had asked if he was Finn Russell.
“Mr Grieg” is the squad’s in-joke, as the veteran captain Laidlaw appears to be a huge favourite amongst the local support, attracting far more attention when they venture out into the fans than Hogg or Russell.
“Mr Greig is a hero wherever he goes,” said Hogg. “It’s been great to see. There has been a lot of support for Greig and for the Scotland team in general.
“We’ve had some fun with him. Anytime we’re walking through shopping malls we shout “Mr Greig” when he’s about five yards in front. Everyone then turns around and mobs him.”
