Rugby: Kirwan punting for a Super title

John Kirwan is encouraged by the programmes developed in Japan. Photo / Richard Robinson

It might be a good idea to make a mental note never to play poker with John Kirwan. The former All Black and current coach of Japan doesn't betray any emotion other than sincerity when he predicts a Japanese team could win a Super Rugby title in 10 years.

He says it matter of factly, and there is no pause to crack a smile and say 'gotcha'. He's for real.

It's hard to know whether to take him seriously. Japan has been a developed rugby nation for more than four decades and have an enormous player base and corporate support. Surely, if they were ever going to arrive on the world stage, they would have done it by now?

Kirwan accepts that, in the last 20 years or so, not enough has been done to convert the potential into performance. What's encouraging him now is the continued growth of the Japanese club competition and the subsequent player development systems.

"We have got the players now and you are probably looking 10 years before we win it," he says, putting a timeframe on how long it would take a Japanese team to find their feet in Super Rugby should the invite come.

"The players are out there. You just have to go looking. We are trying to develop our high performance network so you get a 20-year-old fully developed.

They start playing rugby when they are 13 in Japan and we need to get them then and develop them."

Kirwan might just be letting his passion for his role and excitement about the future run a little too far. He is on much firmer ground in his assertion that Asia is the obvious market for the IRB and Sanzar to develop.

The former Auckland wing is in Hong Kong as an ambassador for HSBC, the banking conglomerate pumping serious cash into Asian rugby in the hope it will lead to lucrative sponsorship deals.

The bank, even in these tough times, is a seriously big player as are many of the companies financially supporting Japanese rugby.

The clout and strength of the economy has everyone in this part of the world convinced that if rugby seriously wants to develop new super powers, Japan must be the starting point.

"They have had their credit crunch. They had it 15 years ago so if anyone's going to come out of this quickly, it is going to be us. The game is strong. Four years ago there were 60,000 people turning up to university games. Have we done our job properly over the last 10 years? No? Are we starting to do it properly now? Yes.

"We have seen a 30 per cent increase to 120,000 players. And the last thing is that we have the biggest companies in the world supporting our rugby teams. NEC have a rugby team. Ricoh have a rugby team. Toshiba have a team.