Japan’s Warner Dearns: I turned down recent All Blacks approach

Japan captain Warner Dearns has revealed that he turned down an approach to switch allegiances to represent his native New Zealand after a title-winning Super Rugby campaign with the Hurricanes.

Dearns, 24, who will win his 33^rd cap for the Brave Blossoms in Saturday’s Nations Championship clash against Italy, confirmed that he was approached about the possibility of standing down from Test rugby for three years in order to become eligible for New Zealand.

© JRFU

The Toshiba lock, who has now won three titles in three years, played in Japan’s last fixture of 2025, a narrow win in Georgia and would have had to sit on the sidelines until November 2028 – and, based on current selection rules, move back to New Zealand – to become available for All Blacks selection.

Dearns, who moved to Japan at the age of 14 when his father Grant was working as a coach for NEC Green Rockets, said he has turned down a fresh approach to play for New Zealand.

"I turned them down and said I'd come back and play here,” said the two-time League One winner who debuted for Japan as a teenager in 2021.

“I went to high school in Japan, was invited into the national team training camp, and was given so many opportunities.

“It would be a waste to throw all of that away and go and play for New Zealand."

© Hurricanes

Japan launches their historic Nations Championship campaign - their first Tier 1 tournament outside of a World Cup - against Gonzalo Quesada’s talented Italian side in Tokyo before facing Ireland in Australia next week and hosting France on 18 July.

Eddie Jones - who is serving the last match ban of his recent suspension by the JRFU following his conduct during a youth tour to Australia in April - has shown his faith in 21-year-old hotshot fly-half Ryunosuke Ito from Meiji University who makes his debut.

“Ito is a very exciting young player,” said acting head coach Neal Hatley who also leads the Japan XV side.

“You saw against the Māori All Blacks he has flashes of attacking brilliance. He wants to attack the line. We feel that he suits the way we want to play. It was an easy choice.”

Japan (1-15): Takato OKABE, Mamoru HARADA, Shuhei TAKEUCHI, Harry HOCKINGS, Warner DEARNS, Ben GUNTER, Kanji SHIMOKAWA, Jack CORNELSEN, Naoto SAITO, Ryunosuke ITO, Kippei ISHIDA, Yuya HIROSE, Dylan RILEY, Kazuma UEDA, Takuro MATSUNAGA Replacements: Hayate ERA, Sojiro OTSUKA, Keijiro TAMEFUSA, Michael STOLBERG, Michael LEITCH, Tiennan COSTLEY, Itsuki KAMIMURA, Sam GREENE

Stay tuned to RugbyJP.com for on-site coverage of Japan’s Nations Championship campaign