Chapter 2 - Opening Match

Safe to say, Japan's committment to hosting an event that celebrates their love of rugby and their culture is deep.
And, yes do they love rugby here!

The journey to the stadium was akin to trekking thru London (Tokyo) to Waterloo (Shinjuku) to catch the train to Richmond (Chofu), from where there is a 20 minute walk to Twickenham (Tobitakyu St). Meaning, it took a while! But the journey was full of Japan supporters in their red and white Blossom jersey, and many of them ready to engage and chat about the upcoming fixture plus, give us directions.

My favourite ice-breaker was to cheekily ask 'who are you supporting?' to which they would laugh and say 'Japan, of course!'. Then I would ask who is your second team to support, and the reply would often be 'England, Eddie Jones', which is when I would whip out my photo of me with Eddie Jones*. One guy, dressed as a Samurai warrior (obviously) even took a photo of that photo whilst I held my mobile phone. I featured in a lot of photos with Japanese fans who wanted a photo with an England fan dressed up in Roses / Eddie Jones' best mate!

*Eddie Jones is the England coach. Prior to that he coached the Japan rugby team so they have a lot of respect for him.

Eddie Jones, head coach, and John Mitchell, defence coach 

(Photo taken in June 2019, London. 

Photo credit: Chia!)

The stadium has a capacity of 50,000 and 45,500 were in attendance for the opening match. A lot of seats are given up for press boxes which is a shame as that could have allowed for a few thousand more fans to enjoy the match. Otherwise, all seats were occupied in a sea of red and white, and some tiny teeny patches of blue from Russian fans.

We popped into the Spectator zone adjacent to the stadium, where sponsors had set up stands for fan interaction activities and a live brass band was performing. Then we saw the Japanese acrobatic air force team (Blue Impulse) perform an aerial show, which included the shaping of the five Olympic Rings. They are really excited about Tokyo 2020 here!

We headed into the stadium and to our seats. Our row was the penultimate row at the top of the stadium but it was still an incredible view of the playing field. We greeted our seat mates (by bowing gently!) and got chatting, eventually learning Japanese for 'heave' and 'go, go, go'.

The Opening Ceremony was cute ('kawaii!') with the kids rendition of 'World In Union' mesmerising.

Then the match began!

We were completely Team Japan, it was hard not to be given the fanbase around us. Things I noted:
- the Opening Ceremony drums, wow
- My man Richie McCaw, hard to miss (former All Blacks player, and that is an understatement of his talent)
- How gratious Japanese fans are to players as they walk off the field during substitution, applauding for even the opposing team.
- The 'Gong' to signal half time or full time
- 'Taiko Cam' during half time where the camera forces spectators to pretend play Taiko drums on screen, very funny
- How the Japanese and Russian players did a lap of the field at the end of the match. The Russian players bowed, the Japanese fans bowed back, it was a lot of bowing!

Not so good things from a project management / event coordinator point of view:

- Crazy long food queues (update: RWC officials have now stated that food for personal consumption can be brought into the stadiums)
- Lack of rubbish bins around the stadiums meaning empty tinnies and food waste was collecting (albeit neatly) in pockets on the streets. Which is understandable given that a tinny outside the stadium was Y300 and a pint inside the stadium was Y1,000.
- The 'Waterloo' Shinjuku train station should have shown platform info in English
- Poor egress information at the time of departure, with my belief that information should have been available in English to reach out to wider audience (over a tannoy)

I know I am in Japan but it is world event with apparently 400,000 visitors to Japan.  English would reach out to majority of overseas visitors. And don't forget, they have the Olympics coming up too when Tokyo will be even more congested so visitors will rely on clear information even more so for this event.

However, we had the benefit of experience the second day when we travelled back to Tokyo Stadium for France v Argentina. It was a good match, lots of French fans showing their passion but I wanted Argentina to win.

France v Argentina national anthems 

We rounded off our first match with a visit to Golden Gai in Shinjuku, which is a small area with over 200 bars within small alleys. Very cute, lots of energy, quite pricey. Lots of cool people to chat to, mostly about rugby including a Japanese law professor who was so drunk I wouldn't have been surprised if he was the guy napping on the pavement, with his head on a rucksack, two hours later at a traffic light. Apparently, that is normal in Tokyo! We ate Katsu curry after the second match, that was a quiet evening, but we did pop into the Fan Zone at Chofu to watch New Zealand v South Africa on the big screens. Fan zones are weird, lots of rules about where you can or cannot stand. But it is easy to sneak in a tinny and snacks!

Busy street in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and an alley in Golden Gai 

Half time match analysis at the fan zone, presented by professional Japanese rugby players

Katsu Curry

DiStar Consumption Index (DCI) for two days of eating:

Fried Chicken Pieces (Kari-age): 16
Of which, were McNuggets: 10
Fries: 1 portion
Japanese food: 1 portion (Katsu Curry, technically a 17th piece of fried chicken)