Jack Dempsey wins Toshiba debut ahead of Scotland return

Former Glasgow Warriors number eight Jack Dempsey helped his new club Toshiba Brave Lupus Musashi to a win in their first pre-season game against rivals Saitama Wild Knights on Saturday.

Dempsey, 32, has joined the 2024 and 2025 League One champions on a lucrative four-year deal and has been training with his new employers since August.

The former Wallaby was signed as a replacement for All Black Shannon Frizell who returned to New Zealand in June after a three-year stay in Japan alongside his countryman Richie Mo’unga.

Toshiba has overhauled their squad and coaching team in the summer after their bid for an unprecedented third consecutive title ended in May with a quarter-final play-off loss to Malcolm Marx and Shaun Stevenson’s Kubota Spears.

Ex-All Black and former Crusaders boss Todd Blackadder, who at the start of his coaching career had brief stints as an assistant with Scotland and Edinburgh, was replaced in the Toshiba hot-seat by the club’s forwards coach Joshua Syms.

Frizell, Mo’unga and Fiji international Seta Tamanivalu all departed with the club’s three spots for non-Japanese Test players (Category C) being filled by Dempsey, Crusaders captain David Havili and World Cup-winning Springbok Aphelele Fassi.

Dempsey, who confirmed in September that Toshiba had given him the green light to feature for his country in the Nations Championship’s Northern Hemisphere stage, came off the bench to make his club debut on a sun-kissed afternoon in Fuchu (which is a 30-minute train from central Tokyo).

“I hadn’t played since the Springboks game in July so for me personally it was about getting as many contacts as I could, to get my shoulders back into playing rugby,” Dempsey told RugbyJP.

Toshiba’s training base and home pitch is adjacent to the company’s main factory in the region – in the western part of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area - which is commonplace among the corporation-backed Japanese clubs.

Sydney native Dempsey reflected on his first hit-out as Toshiba – who were whitewashed 46-0 and 45-0 by their rivals Saitama home and away last season – produced an encouraging display to record a 55-40 win.

“I found with the speed of the game that there was a lot of one-on-one opportunities which was good for me to get my body back into those positions,” said the former Waratahs loose forward who was able to switch allegiance in 2022 thanks to his Glasgow-born grandfather.

“It was a team effort, it was a reward for how hard we worked in the pre-season and to come up against a great team like Saitama, in our first game, and to get a win is really good for us.” 

Toshiba’s first pre-season game was played over three 40-minute periods and kicked off at 1pm as the temperate reached 26C.

“With the sun and the early kick-off there were some new things for me, so it was very different to playing at 7pm in Scotland, so it was good for me to get that experience.

“It will then be easier for me when I came back after the Nations Championship.”

Dempsey will be available to Gregor Townsend for November’s home games against New Zealand, Australia and Japan having been put through his paces in his club’s gruelling pre-season training as they build up to their 12 December season opener away at Pablo Matera and Franco Mostert’s Honda Heat.

“I’ve been here since August so I’ve seen what the young guys have gone through all the way up to the older guys with the tough pre-season. We talked all week about forgetting about making mistakes, the tactics, and technical aspects and we wanted to go out there and have fun together.

“You're never going to play a 120-minute game in a season so it was about giving everyone a run out.”

Dempsey, who will play alongside the likes of Japan’s world-class captain Warner Dearns and Brave Blossoms legend Michael Leitch next season, credited a team effort in helping them over the line against Panasonic-backed Saitama who were already playing in their fifth pre-season outing.

“We wanted to give energy and effort from player one to player 40 so to be a part of that and to get my first game in was very good. To get a win against a team like that – although I’ve never played in Japan before – I know about Panasonic and how good they are so to get a win was the cherry on the top.”

The well-travelled Scot has had to overhaul his pre-match routine and has been treated to some popular local food spots by his new teammates.

“I had to change my whole pre-game nutrition plan with the early kick-off but I’ve been enjoying the yakiniku (grilled meat), I’m still waiting for something to top that!

"The hooker Mamoru Harada took me out for that and it’s the highlight so far, he ordered for me and we had the steak and it was excellent.”

Toshiba will host ambitious division two side Koto Shimizu Blue Sharks, who are led by the Piutau brothers, Charles and Siale, this Saturday with Dempsey likely to be handed some minutes in his final appearance before returning to the Test match arena.

Scotland’s first-choice number eight will miss the 2027 Six Nations, as it clashes with the domestic League One calendar, and will be hoping to leave a lasting impression in November to boost his chances of gracing the World Cup stage for the third time in his career next year.

“I can’t control what happens after this autumn,” he said when he was unveiled by Toshiba in September.

“The Rugby World Cup is the goal for every player in the world and I’m the same. For me, at my age, I’ll be 33 next year, it could be my third World Cup and it’s in my home nation (Australia).

“I've played one for Australia and one for Scotland, to play one in my home country would be a massive bucket list opportunity.”