The customary haka before a match. Beauden Barrett, who is attracting attention not only in Japan but also internationally, can be seen in the third person from the left (Photo: AFLO) The New Zealand All Blacks, the national team that has won the Rugby World Cup next year a record three times, are set to visit Japan and play at the National Stadium on October 29. If officially announced, this will be the first time the Japanese national team will play each other since the previous World Cup in 2019, when they played at Ajinomoto Stadium and lost 31-69. It will be the first time the All Blacks will play at the newly renovated National Stadium. The All Blacks are a powerful team that has won three of the last nine World Cups, along with South Africa, and are always competing to be the best in the world in terms of power and popularity. For the Japanese national team, this will be a perfect training match for the World Cup coming up in September 2023. Japan, which reached the last eight for the first time in its history in 2019 and is expected to make further progress at the 2023 World Cup in France, has had trouble organizing matches with foreign teams due to the spread of the new coronavirus that began in 2020. In 2020, the year after the World Cup was held in Japan, the team was unable to play a single match, and the Sunwolves, which was formed in Japan to compete in Super Rugby, a professional league in the southern hemisphere, disappeared after that year. There is an absolute lack of competition for Japanese players to seriously compete overseas with foreign players. On May 30, the day after Rugby League One, which was launched this year, ended with the Saitama Wild Knights winning the championship, PR Keita Inagaki, who has been selected for the Japan national team since the 2015 World Cup, said at the annual awards ceremony , “The Japan national team currently plays at most seven test matches a year. Now that the Sunwolves are gone (in 2020), will that be enough to make up for the gap with the rest of the world?” He also expressed his concerns and challenges he feels as a player. Japan’s national team will play England, Argentina, Samoa, and the second-ranked American nation in next year’s World Cup. England will be led by Eddie Jones, who once coached the Japan national team, and will be looking to avenge the disappointment of finishing runner-up in 2019. Argentina has played multiple matches each year against NZ and Australia in the southern hemisphere, beating the All Blacks in 2020. The All Blacks game is an important match to gauge where Japan is at the moment, as the Japanese national team will need to be able to beat either to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Cup, which will be tougher than second place in the qualifying pool.