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Shota Horie: The shy Japanese icon chasing fairytale ending

Shota Horie of Panasonic Wild Knights after the NTT Japan Rugby League One match between Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights and Toyota Verblitz at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium on January 06, 2024 in Kumagaya, Saitama, Japan. (Photo by Kenta Harada/Getty Images)

Shota Horie won’t need any introduction to the massive crowd at Sunday’s Japan Rugby League One final between Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights and Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo.

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The 38-year-old hooker, an icon of the Japanese game, is revered everywhere he has been around the world, which is quite an achievement, given he doesn’t speak a lot of English and is a shy man by nature.

That hasn’t mattered as Horie, distinguishable by his trademark dreadlocks, has built up a global network of friends during his club and test wanderings.

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The 76-test veteran was a lamplighter for his countrymen playing overseas during the professional era, enjoying stints with Otago in New Zealand as well as the Melbourne Rebels in Australia and Japan’s own ill-fated Super Rugby team, the Sunwolves.

Then, of course, is his career in Japan, through 14-years with the Brave Blossoms, which saw him attend four Rugby World Cups.

Fixture
Japan Rugby League One
Saitama Wild Knights
20 - 24
Full-time
Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo
All Stats and Data

He has also played over 200 club games, winning six titles with the Wild Knights.

Horie was a key part of the Brave Blossoms teams that shocked South Africa at Brighton in 2015, and then each of the number one-ranked Ireland as well as Scotland, at their home Rugby World Cup four years later.

He won the man-of-the-match award in Japan’s 19-12 win over Ireland, which ultimately led to their first Rugby World Cup quarterfinal.

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A constant presence for his club, Horie has played alongside some fellow big names of the game: Wallabies David Pocock and Berrick Barnes, All Blacks Sam Whitelock and Sonny Bill Williams, England’s George Krius, Wales’s Hadleigh Parkes, to name just a few.

On Sunday, he will have Springboks Damien de Allende and Lood de Jager, as well as Wallaby winger Marika Koroibete, for company in the final leg of his farewell.

The Wild Knights made the decider on the back of 17 straight league wins.

They also thrashed Super Rugby’s Chiefs in the inaugural Cross Border series.

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Of those 18 games, the self-proclaimed ‘old man’ of the team has featured 16 times, the figure a testament to his professionalism in how Horie looks after himself off the field, body and mind.

The numbers are also recognition from his coaches and teammates as to how important he is, on the field and around the training base, in one of the most dominant dynasties the game in Japan has ever seen.

As well as their six titles since the game went semi-professional in 2003 with the inauguration of the Top League, the Wild Knights have lost just twice since the game returned from its’ Covid enforced hiatus in 2020, at one point going 47 games without defeat.

But all journeys have an end and for Horie, that moment is just two days away when he will run out onto the National Stadium for the final time.

Appropriately, given his remarkable career, he signs off in the league final, as the Wild Knights chase a record seventh national title against Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo.

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Watch the exclusive reveal-all episode of Walk the Talk with Ardie Savea as he chats to Jim Hamilton about the RWC 2023 experience, life in Japan, playing for the All Blacks and what the future holds. Watch now for free on RugbyPass TV

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O
OJohn 1 hour ago
Will overseas selection make the difference for British and Irish Lions?

The trouble with appointing a coach from one state that is not the Tahs, is that the p.... at the Tahs will start weedling away immediately on ways to undermine the non Tah coach.


It's what the private school toffs do. They have a born to rule mentality, even tho they are complete failures. That is why they will only tolerate Tah coaches or weak kiwis they know they can control. A kiwi on a million Australian dollars a year will do anything the largest franchise in Australia tells him to do. He's only here for the money.


That's why Ewen McKenzie was the ideal candidate, even tho Hooper and Beale still set out straight away to undermine him to get Cheika installed but the next best alternative is to have a group of coaches from some of the franchises, except the Tahs, (not the Western Force with kiwi Cron - who is hopeless), to keep the Tahs in their place. The Wallabies must also not have more than 3 Tah players in the squad. Otherwise they will start scheming again under instruction from the NSW administration. The Tahs have spent the last 20 years undermining the Wallabies to get more players than they deserved in the squad. Their NSW egos are more important to them than the Wallabies.


I can't see why a triumverate of Super Rugy coaches can't coach the Wallabies too. I could include MacKellar in there as well but he has shown himself to select on favoritism rather than ability based on the ridiculous number of sub standard Brumbies who got a game under Rennie. He's not much of a Queenslander but the Tahs will stab in the back in a flash too eventually.

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