Rennie and Lienert-Brown hail new Japanese starlet
- Mark Pickering
- 7 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Kobe Steelers head coach Dave Rennie and All Blacks centre Anton Lienert-Brown were full of praise for Japanese starlet Shunsuke Uenobo after their nail-biting 34-33 win against champions Toshiba Brave Lupus on Sunday.
Highly-rated full-back Uenobo, 22, followed up on his sensational Player of The Match-winning debut from a week ago by playing the full 80 minutes as Kobe battled to a hard-fought win in Tokyo to keep pressure on leaders Saitama Wild Knights.
The Tenri University graduate scored a hat-trick against Shizuoka Blue Revs on 7 February and looked sharp on his second outing as a professional despite his opposite number being Japan full-back Takuro Matsunaga.
Uenobo, who stands at 6ft (183cm) and weighs 13 stone 12 pounds (88kg), made two-line breaks, gained 78 metres – the second highest number in the game after Toshiba wing Shohei Toyoshima (83m) - and was lively throughout Kobe’s seventh win of the campaign.
Post-match, ex-Wallabies head coach Rennie said: “We’re excited about the future for him at 15.
“We know what a talent he is. We're just making sure he keeps working hard and keeps his feet on the ground.
“Hopefully the media doesn’t put too much pressure on him.”
Uenobo has joined his older brother Yuma, 23, in League One. The latter is a flanker who also graduated from Tenri University in Nara Prefecture but is yet to make an appearance for last season’s runners-up Kubota Spears after joining last year.
Kobe centre Anton Lienert-Brown echoed the words of his head coach who remains in contention for the All Blacks head coach job.
“He's a special talent," the former Chiefs midfielder said of newcomer Uenobo.
"For me, I think what I want to do is use my experience to help him develop.
“We know, you know, the attributes he has so my job is to just to help him grow and get settled into the team.”
Rennie’s decision to play regular full-back Kanta Matsunaga – the younger brother of Toshiba’s Takuro – on the wing against Toshiba was an inspired one as the former scored two crucial tries and won Player of The Match.
Kobe, who last won Japan’s flagship club competition (then known as the Top League) in 2018 under Dave Dillon, are now third in the 12-team league as they approach the half-way point of the competition this weekend.
Last season, Rennie’s star-laden team were beaten 31-3 by Toshiba in the semi-finals before they outgunned Robbie Deans' Saitama 22-17 in the third-place play-off.
With the return of former World Player of The Year Ardie Savea, the arrival of Lienert-Brown and the inspired form of talismanic captain Brodie Retallick – the competition’s leading try scorer with nine in eight games – the Steelers have a harder edge this season.
Fiji-born wing Inoke Burua, a summer arrival from Yokohama Canon Eagles, has been in blistering form with five tries in his last four games and was last week named in Japan’s national team squad for the first time.
Kobe, whose one blemish on their 2025/2026 record is a narrow 33-28 opening round loss against Malcolm Marx and Bernard Foley’s Kubota, host unbeaten leaders Saitama on Saturday in what promises to be one of the games of the season.