Kamaishi was hit by the 2011 tsunami but next year will host two RWC 2019 games. Rich Freeman reports from the opening of the Kamaishi Unosumai Memorial Stadium

How Rugby World Cup 2019 is helping to rebuild Kamaishi

Back in 2007, Wallabies captain Stirling Mortlock described the Rugby World Cup as “not just a celebration of rugby but a celebration of the host nation”.

On 25 September 2019, when Fiji play Uruguay at Kamaishi Unosumai Memorial Stadium, you can add to that a celebration of a town’s bravery, resilience and gratitude.

On 11 March 2011, Kamaishi bore the full brunt of the tsunami that followed the Great Tohoku Earthquake.

The damage to the former iron hub turned fishing town was massive, with 1,064 of the town’s 39,400 citizens killed, 98% of the town’s fishing fleet destroyed, 60% of businesses flooded and 30% of buildings destroyed.

Yet rugby was never far from the locals’ minds – no huge surprise given the town was host for many years to Nippon Steel RFC, the “iron men from the north” who won seven straight All-Japan Rugby Football Championships between 1979 and 1985.

Players such as Pita Alatini and Scott Fardy refused to be airlifted out after the earthquake, opting to stay and help their team-mates and friends in the town. And just two months after the disaster Kamaishi Seawaves, who evolved when Nippon Steel closed their mines in the town, played Yamaha Jubilo in the hope it would give locals something to cheer about.

With Japan set to stage Rugby World Cup 2019, talk soon turned to whether the town could be a host city.

“Some people initially disagreed with the stadium build as there is still so much restructuring of housing to be done,” said Takeshi Nagata, a former scrum-half with the Seawaves and now an official with the Kamaishi City Rugby World Cup headquarters.

“But others saw it as being the creation of hope at a time when everyone was down and there was no hope in the city.”

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