The 41st University Rugby Football Championship final was the fourth time in a row that Waseda University has taken on Kanto Gakuin University and this year it was Waseda that walked away with the silverware following its 31-19 win at Tokyo's National Stadium on Sunday.
Ayumu Goromaru of Waseda University (center) cuts back to score a try in the 32nd minute of
the 41st University Rugby Football Championship final against Kanto Gakuin University on
Sunday at Tokyo's National Stadium. Waseda won 31-19.
The two teams have now faced each other in the last four finals with Kanto winning in the even years (2002 and 2004) and Waseda taking the honors in the odd years (2003 and 2005).
And such has been their dominance of the university scene that the last time that neither of the two powerhouses featured in the final was 1995 -- Kanto winning five titles since to Waseda's two.
But on Sunday, the Waseda players were simply too fast, too strong and too powerful for their opponents.
"This game has been our aim for one year so we prepared very hard," said Waseda head coach Katsuyuki Kiyomiya. "It was also the best we have played all year."
The Kanto pack may have had the edge in the scrums but Hiroshi Haruguchi's players always looked second best even when they managed to take a 14-12 lead with 49 minutes on the clock.
"I think we were satisfied just reaching the final," said Haruguchi. "We were too negative and needed to be more aggressive."
It was to their credit, therefore, that the Kanto players didn't allow Waseda to put the game beyond doubt until the 79th minute when Yuta Imamura (one of Waseda's standout players all year) raced away for his team's fifth try.
Waseda started as it has played all season.
A superb break by scrumhalf Shota Goto was eventually finished off by Shimpei Naito, and fullback Ayumu Goromaru's touchline conversion saw Waseda lead 7-0 with just three minutes gone.
Goromaru may have been the youngest player on the field at just 18-years-old, but he was showing just why he is so highly rated.
At 185 cm and 90 kg, he has the physical attributes needed to play at the highest level and he showed in the final that he also has the necessary skills.
It didn't seem there was much on when he took the ball off a regular blindside move on the halfway line in the 27th minute. But the teenager, whose older brother, Ryo, is a hooker at Kanto, broke the first tackle and then sprinted 50 meters to put Waseda 12-0 up.
Everything seemed to be going Waseda's way including a number of dubious decisions from the referee, but two errors either side of halftime allowed Kanto back into the game.
First, flyhalf Eiji Ando had a kick charged down by Tadashi Kitagawa who showed good pace to re-gather and touch down under the posts. And then the impressive Goto made one of his only mistakes of the year in throwing an ambitious pass that was intercepted, resulting in a try for Tomoki Kitagawa 80 meters down at the other end of the field.
Ando made amends, however, in the 57th minute when he spotted a gap in the Kanto defense and sprinted over for a well-deserved try, before lock Toru Uchihashi scored a try that would have put Martin Johnson to shame stealing a Kanto lineout ball and galloping in from the halfway line.
Imamura's try was no more than the center deserved and although Tomoki Kitagawa scored a late consolation, it was too little too late.
The victory (Waseda's eleventh overall in the competition) was just reward for Kiyomiya if only for the fact that in an age when rugby has resembled American Football with the number of personnel changes, it was the same Waseda starting XV that finished the game.