Dear SIRC Families
Shibuya International Rugby Club will come into our eighth season from tomorrow.
Our club started its activities seven years ago, in autumn 2017. We have chosen 20 September, the opening day of the Rugby World Cup in Japan, as its foundation date, exactly two years before the event.
The club’s motto is ‘Making friends all over the world through rugby’. With 340 members now, it may be hard to know what is going on in other grades, even if you know the class you belong to. So we would like to start a regular newsletter called ‘SIRC Families’, which will mainly focus on international news about the club.
During September and October, teams from Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong will be coming to Japan to play friendly matches with Shogun and Colts.
The first team to visit Japan will be 26 boys and girls from the U12 Raptors Rugby Academy in Sydney, who will come to Japan in September to take part in the Heroes Rugby Friendship Festival from 21-23 September in Sugadaira, where they will play games with Japanese U12 teams including our U12 Samurais.
During this period we also hold our Sugadaira training camp, from Super Ninja to Samurai age groups. We will invite the visiting Australian members and their parents to the Sugadaira Sun Hotel, where we will be staying, on Sunday 22 September to hold a welcome party while enjoying a campfire together. The campfire in Sugadaira was enjoyed last summer with the famous Matsuken Samba, and this year it will be an opportunity for international friendship.
At their request, we will also have a friendly match on the evening of Wednesday 25 September in Tokyo with a joint team from Shogun U13 and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology First Jr High School. Kick-off is at 5pm and the venue will be the grounds of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology First Jr High School in Setagaya.
On Sunday 29 September, the Colts U16 and U18 teams will welcome Melton West Rugby Club from New Zealand to the Nagasawa Ground.
As we move into September, new children from families coming to Japan from overseas will be joining us, while some of our members will be relocating overseas at this time of year. Nine members, including Oliver (U15 Shogun captain), who is returning to the USA to attend school, will be leaving SIRC and moving to other parts of the world.
SIRC has a saying: ‘Once SIRC, you are always SIRC’. This means that once you become a member of SIRC, you are always a member of SIRC, no matter where you go and live in the world. We would like to introduce their future activities when we have such opportunities.
With the motto ‘Making friends all over the world through rugby’, the SIRC family will continue to work together to make the club even better this season. Thank you all for your cooperation and support.
31 August 2024
Koji Tokumasu
Founder/Chairman
Shibuya International Rugby Club