Our partners use cookies to provide you with the very best experience, including to personalise content and advertising. Data on your discussion with this website and the ads shown for you could be shared with companies involved in the shipping or personalisation of ads on this website and elsewhere online.
Please let us know if you agree.
From Becky Grey
BBC Sport in Japan
The World Cup was only over an hour when Japan wing Kotaro Matsushima became a fanatic and completed his.
This was the first time a Japanese participant had scored three tries at a World Cup game, earning him the nickname’Ferrari’ for the dazzling speed.
Matters got even better for your 26-year-old, after helping the hosts Prove Ireland. His rating gave Japan a win against Samoa, and came Matsushima moment at the win against Scotland.
He crossed to his side’s opening try and ignited a Japanese assault which helped the nation achieve the World Cup quarter-finals for the very first time.
The game was this season in Japan’s most-watched television programme .
Matsushima’s score left him the 2019 the joint top try-scorer of World Cup so far, on five alongside Wales’ Josh Adams, also placed him front and center on the rugby stage.
However, this recognition for its wing’s electric skill and speed had been a long time coming.
A 30-minute push from International Stadium Yokohama is the pitch at which Hideyuki Fujiwara helped to mold international rugby sensation.
I expected something great from him
Fujiwara was Matsushima’s trainer between the ages of 18 and 15, but his influence has extended far beyond this.
The 51-year-old refers to their relationship as”near a father-son bond”, a specially poignant description provided that Matsushima’s father died while he had been at the faculty.
Messages are exchanged by them before each game. Fujiwara passes on decent fortune and guidance and Matsushima answers, no matter how active he is.
Seeing someone develop into a player creating World Cup history for their nation from a teenager must be an experience, but it has not taken Fujiwara.
“I expected it,” said Fujiwara, who is still the trainer at Matsushima’s senior school. “I expected something good .
“He had a enormous influence on the Scotland game. He was a wonderful player but he has become an one.
“The youngsters who play at the school today are really inspired by him in the World Cup.
“There are always children who appear to him and would like to be like him it’s tough to find anyone as good as him.”
After Matsushima finished school, it was Fujiwara who persuaded him to join with a side as opposed to remain in Japan and play college rugby like his team-mates.
Before he moved to Japan aged six matsushima was born to Zimbabwean dad and some Japanese mom and lived in South Africa, so playing Durban-based side Sharks was not much of a foreign concept.
It was during that time that he played one of the other wings of the World Cup: Cheslin Kolbe.
Kolbe and he were part of this South Africa Under-20 coaching group to the 2013 Junior World Championship.
Matsushima didn’t, although kolbe went on to compete at the tournament. The next year, he made his first cap for Japan.
They will be on exactly the same pitch , this time as opponents. It is Matsushima’s very first World Cup quarter-final against the nation of his arrival, but he already has experience of beating the Springboks on rugby’s greatest point.
Fujiwara’s most treasured memory of Matsushima came a couple of years prior to that, although he started at the 2015 World Cup at Japan win against South Africa.
“In the tournament quarter-final in his final year of high school, 2011, he performed exceptionally,” Fujiwara clarified.
“He did all he scored tries whenever he touched the ball. We had been national champions that year, it was the only and very first time we have won.
“It is but one of my finest memories as a trainer, it is going to remain with me every day.”
He’s happy to avoid attention, though Matsushima has been catching eyes on the pitch.
Fujiwara stated Matsushima was a pupil that was mischievous, but he describes him very shy.
He explained Matsushima is often asked to be by national broadcaster NHK on television, however, refuses unless it is a programme. Fujiwara believes the wing can manage being in the spotlight, though.
“He’s not too fond of this media,” he clarified.
“It takes a great deal of time so he often refuses but his supervisor says that he must do more.
“The person he is and him at the rugby world are two distinct things he can manage the attention.
“He’s essentially quite silent and shy but he is powerful inside because he has been brought up really well.”
Former Japan fly-half Kosei Ono, who played from South Africa Matsushima from the 2015 win, thinks this booked nature may actually be among those keys to the achievement of the wing.
The pair play at Top League aspect Suntory Sungoliath, in which the performances of Matsushima made him the Most Valuable Player award of the league in 2018.
Ono states Matsushima’s reluctance to steal the limelight represents a feature of the Japan group which was fundamental in their own four pool-stage wins.
“He’s among the several players who are playing for the group and appearing in the perfect places at the perfect time to finish off the group operation,” Ono said.
“Japan are playing for each other instead of against each other and no one is attempting to outshine anyone. That is just Japanese culture, I guess; everyone is doing what’s ideal for the group.”
Since the World Cup came, rugby has experienced unprecedented attention and fans have created an incredible atmosphere at the hosts’ games.
Sunday’s quarter-final against South Africa will undoubtedly soon be no different by helping his side into another angry against the Springboks and Matsushima could fortify his standing.
He might not enjoy but Ono considers that it is well worth the effect he would have on the next generation of Japanese players.
“In 2015, there weren’t too many Japanese superstars that we looked up to,” he said.
“If he finishes one day and sees another generation of gamers that want to become Kotaro Matsushima, how cool would that be?
“That’s what are his inspirational factor. He would not enjoy it as such, but it’s pretty cool he can inspire small children and the entire nation doing what he enjoys.”
Kotaro Matsushima has lit up the World Cup along with his wing drama – can Japan be led by him ?
The group make toys 6-8 year olds
Trash talk, haka struggles, new stars burning bright and nation-uniting triumphs – how much do you recall of those Rugby World Cup minutes?
Get latest scores and headlines delivered to your phoneto our newsletter and also learn where to find us on internet.
The way to get into rugby union – throughout the age groups around the 15-player match or try rugby sevensthat made its Olympic debut in 2016.
Enjoy the discussion, analysis and interviews with all BBC 5 live and World Service plus our union comment Posts.

Read more: odds for nfl