Men and women all over the world would like to be fearless, tough, stoical and accepted into an amiably like-minded team that wants and needs to work together. It’s not just New Zealanders. This explains why the game of rugby is spreading, and the less established rugby nations are growing stronger.

 

Different countries take the universal rugby values and shape them in different ways. Japan is a good example. Watch closely tomorrow when they play Wales. When a Japanese player is replaced during a match he will turn after crossing the white line and bow to the opposition, to his teammates, to the pitch itself. This is a ritual familiar from martial arts – the rugby player is saluting his large open-air dojo. In Japan, rugby shares history with judo and kendo as a vehicle for keeping alive the samurai ideals of bushido, the way of the warrior.

 

When the game entered the country through the port cities of Yokohama and Kobe more than 100 years ago, a modernising Japan was looking to graft ancient values on to activities that didn’t involve swords and necks.

 

Japanese rugby is the lack of violence outside the rules. There is a reason for this: the game provides for plenty of violence within the rules.

This is how rugby found its way into the new national education system, so that there was already a high-school national championship by 1918.

 

Ever since, Japanese rugby has continued to encourage and instil the samurai virtues of seishin ryoku (spiritual strength). In rugby there will always be takers for ganburu (do your absolute best) isshokenmei (give everything), konjo (bottle) and gaman (endurance and perseverance).

 

Whereas Western sportspeople grow fit on a dual philosophy of healthy body, healthy mind, Japanese sports involve a third element, the spirit. The concept of seishin implies body, mind, and spirit, all three together the vital ingredients for success.