Sunwolves
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| Union | JRFU |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 |
| Location | Tokyo, Japan |
| Ground(s) | Chichibunomiya Stadium, Tokyo Singapore Sports Hub, Singapore |
| Chairman | Yuichi Ueno |
| CEO | Yuji Watase |
| Coach(es) | Filo Tiatia |
| Captain(s) | Ed Quirk and Harumichi Tatekawa |
| Most caps |
Shinnosuke Kakinaga, Ed Quirk, Yu Tamura and Riaan Viljoen (15) |
| Top scorer | Tusi Pisi (105) |
| Most tries | Akihito Yamada (9) |
| League(s) | Super Rugby |
| 2016 | 4th (Africa 1 Conference) 8th (South African Group) 18th (overall) |
| Official website | |
| sunwolves |
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| Union website | |
| jrfu |
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 Current season
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The Sunwolves (Japanese: サンウルブズ) – currently known as the HITO-Communications Sunwolves for sponsorship reasons – are a professional rugby union team and is Japan's representative team in SANZAAR's international Super Rugby competition. The team is based in Tokyo, Japan, but will also play some home matches in Singapore. They made their debut in Super Rugby in 2016.
Since its launch in 1996, the SANZAR-organised Super Rugby competition (previously known as Super 12 and Super 14) was limited to teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In 2011, it was announced that SANZAR would expand its international Tri Nations competition to include Argentina, which resulted in that competition being rebranded as The Rugby Championship. This led to rumours that Argentina would also seek to have teams included in the Super Rugby competition and SANZAR confirmed that they would explore expansion to other regions in future. However, since SANZAR sold the existing Super Rugby package to its broadcasters for the period 2011–15, it meant that no changes to the format would be permitted until the 2016 season.
In 2013, SANZAR CEO Greg Peters announced that Super Rugby would be expanded from the 2016 season onwards, adding that South African franchise the Kings would be one of the expansion teams. In early 2014, SANZAR confirmed that Super Rugby would be increased from 15 to 18 teams starting from the 2016 season, with Argentine side Jaguares getting one of the additional spots. It was confirmed that both Argentina and the 18th team would participate in the South African Conference.
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