If Toyota ever decides to branch out into making soap operas it could do no worse than call its show "The Old, the Young and the Brave," based on the performance of its rugby team at Tokyo's Chichibunomiya on Saturday, as it beat Toshiba Brave Lupus 24-19 in the semifinal of the 42nd All Japan Championship.

The Old came in the form of veteran flyhalf Keiji Hirose, who contributed four penalties and a conversion.

Try scorers Hiroki Mizuno (the Top League Rookie of the Year) and Irei Asada represented the Young, while the Brave was a reflection of the overall team effort as Verblitz ruined Toshiba's chances of an unprecedented triple of domestic rugby trophies.

Toyota's reward is a final against NEC, after the Green Rockets once again showed that they save their best rugby for cup competitions, as they beat Top League runnerup and Microsoft Cup finalist Yamaha Jubilo 24-13 at Osaka's Hanazono Stadium.

"It wasn't hard to get up for today's game," said Toyota assistant coach Errol Brain. "Toshiba are the best side in Japan but we didn't want to finish our season today. They put us under a lot of pressure, but we stuck together as a team and showed a lot of character."

On a cold and wet day the game was always going to be about whether Toyota could stop Toshiba's impressive pack and its rolling maul.

And the early signs were encouraging, as three times in the space of 10 minutes the Toyota forwards not only stopped the Toshiba freight train but also managed to force a turnover.

However, the sin-binning of Filo Tiatia in the 25th minute made a difficult task all the more harder and Toshiba made the most of its extra man to score two pushover tries through Luatangi Vatuvei and Scott McLeod.

But with Hirose living up to his nickname of Superboots, the teams went into break with Toshiba holding a narrow 12-9 lead, as the Toyota forwards continued to frustrate and outplay their opponents.

The game turned two minutes into the second half with a bizarre try. A rushed clearance kick from Daisuke Hihara went straight to Mizuno, and with the Toshiba players unsure of what to do, Mizuno was given a clear run to the line from 45 meters out.

"The referee had been strict on the 10-meter circle, so we just stood off," said Toshiba vice captain Nock Holten. "We should have just given a penalty away."

Asada's try came 20 minutes later when the scrumhalf dived on a loose ball after his pack had driven the Toshiba forwards back from a five-meter scrum and it seemed as if Toyota had the game wrapped up.

But five minutes of injury time, during which Toshiba was awarded a penalty try led to some nail-biting moments for the 1,000 Toyota fans, who had chartered a shinkansen to bring them up from Nagoya.

But with the final whistle eventually being blown after 85 minutes of play the Toyota players and fans were finally able to celebrate.

"The fans were fantastic," said Brain. "But we need to build ourselves up again for next week. NEC have a lot of experience and it will be a tough assignment."

With Brain bowing out after six years and NECs Jaco van der Westhuyzen looking at an immediate move back to Leicester, both teams will be looking to send off their imports in style.

Good news at last

The Japan Rugby Football Union received some much-needed good news on Saturday.

Following on from a week in which it had found itself caught in the middle of the escalating feud between NHK and the Asahi group, the JRFU was delighted to hear that the Japanese Government is planning to give its full backing to the Union's bid to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Speaking at a lunch at the JRFU headquarters, Tomiji Sugawa, General Director of the Sports and Youth Bureau at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Science and Technology said that, "The Japanese government is looking forward to giving its full backing to the Japan Rugby Football Union in its bid to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup and we are of the firm belief that hosting the event in Japan will contribute greatly to the proud history of the tournament."

Sugawa was joined at the lunch by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori (head of Japan's bid committee); Dr. Syd Millar, Chairman of the International Rugby Board, who arrived from Hong Kong on Friday, where he had attended the draw for the Rugby World Cup Sevens 2005; and Mihoko Tamamura, Director of the United Nations World Food Programme office in Japan, a charity the IRB has made a number of donations to in the past.

Ms. Tamamura later received a check for 2,033,974 yen from Hiroshi Hibino, acting President of the JRFU, the result of collections made at rugby stadiums throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area in aid of tsunami relief.