Trophy win allows Japan Under-20s rejoin the world's elite in 2020 age-grade championship

The World Rugby Under-20 Trophy, the second tier of global age-grade rugby, has proven to be a good breeding ground for talent in recent years, despite the competing sides not boasting the player pools or the resources of their counterparts in the World Rugby Under-20 Championship.

The tournament, plus targeted funding from World Rugby, has allowed Georgia to establish themselves within the Championship after years of coming close in the Trophy. Last year’s promoted side, Fiji, were also able to avoid relegation in June, as Scotland were condemned to at least a year in the Trophy in their place.

Scotland will now join the hosts, which RugbyPass understands could be Spain, in next year’s Trophy, as well as the regional qualifiers from each continent. Teams such as Uruguay, Hong Kong, Portugal and Canada are regular participants, while the Oceania Rugby qualifier will be a shootout between Tonga and Samoa.

One team Scotland will not be joining in the Trophy, however, is Japan. The Asian side secured qualification back to the Championship on Sunday, beating Portugal in a nail-biting 35-34 win at the Estadio Martins Pereira, just outside São Paulo.

This will be the fourth time that Japan have competed in the Championship, with the Baby Blossoms having only ever spent one-year stints in the competition as they have been immediately relegated back to the Trophy.

Japan are your #WorldRugbyU20s Trophy champions! pic.twitter.com/ZojB0cz1zy

— World Rugby (@WorldRugby) July 21, 2019

Japan will be hoping to buck that trend in Italy, hosts for the 2020 tournament, as they also seek to use the legacy of the 2019 Rugby World Cup to help catapult Japanese rugby to a level where they can consistently compete with tier one nations.

Two of the stars of this Japanese side, Shota Fukui and Halatoa Vailea, will graduate from under-20 rugby this year and head coach Yoshitake Mizuma will need to find new difference-makers to lean upon next season. In fact, a total of 20 players from this year’s squad will no longer be eligible in 2020, giving Mizuma plenty of work to do over the next ten months.

World Rugby U20 Trophy 2019 – Japan U20 v Portugal U20 https://t.co/PMRjCHDuSh

— World Rugby (@WorldRugby) July 21, 2019

As celebrations went on in Japan, there was frustration in Portugal as the European side came within inches of qualifying for the Championship. Had they been able to, they would have been the only non-tier one European side, apart from Georgia, to qualify for the Championship in its 12-year history.

With a number of their key players returning for next year, Portugal will be among the favourites to qualify again for the Trophy, where they would join Scotland and, if they are granted rights to host the tournament, Spain, in a competition that looks like it will have a very European flavour.

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