Panasonic reach Top League final

TOKYO (Feb. 1) Panasonic Wild Knights ran in eight tries to beat Toshiba Brave Lupus 55-15 and reach the final of the Japan Rugby Top League on Saturday.

The 2010-11 champion scored three tries in the first half at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Rugby Ground and then added a further five in the second before a crowd of 9,916 and a live TV audience across Africa and the Middle East as they swept aside the challenge of the five-time champion, who have never finished below fourth in the 11-year history of the league.

Ryu Koliniasi Holani, Fumiaki Tanaka, Yasutaka Sasakura, Seiichi Shimomura, Takashi Miyake, Tomoki Kitagawa, Tadasuke Nishihara and Akihito Yamada all crossed the whitewash for the Wild Knights, with Berrick Barnes adding three penalties and three conversions.

“There are four games to go this season including the All-Japan Championship,” said Panasonic captain Shota Horie. “But we were only focussed on this one. Before the game I was worried about the Toshiba attack but all the players said the same and it was our defensive effort that won it.”

Toshiba’s points came from tries by Toshiaki Hirose and Futoshi Mori and a conversion and penalty from Takahiro Ogawa.

“Panasonic put us under so much pressure at the breakdown that we couldn’t play our style of rugby,” said Brave Lupus captain Yuta Mochizuki.

Panasonic will take on the winners of Sunday’s game between two-time defending champions Suntory Sungoliath and Kobe Kobelco Steelers, who won the league in its inaugural season in 2003-04.