My very first RWC2019 match, Japan vs Russia, started with the Kimigayo being beautifully sung by singer and song writer, Ayaka Hirahara.
The Kimigayo, Japan’s national anthem, boasts one of the oldest lyrics among world national anthems and also one of the shortest. And no, the English, God Save the Queen, is not short. It actually has five more verses that are hardly ever sung.
Then opera singer, Alexander Gladkov, followed with the Gosudarstvennyy Gimn Rossiyskoy Federatsii, the State Anthem of the Russian Federation.
An admirable rendition from Gladkov but unfortunately, the singer and the players did not seem in sync with each other. If we were to follow our unscientific formula using national anthems to predict match winners, Russia was sure to lose the match.
But within 5 minutes of the game, Russia scored and dashed Japan’s hopes of scoring the first try of the tournament.
20 minutes in, it was conclusively a fairly entertaining match but not that high in quality.
Being the superior team, Japan in the end won.
That’s about all this watcher can say about the match.
Further reading
For a more in-depth analysis of the Japan vs Russian 2019 opening match.
