Kenta Kutsuna: Scotland’s rugby samurai

But how many could match such an inspirational journey as that of Heriot’s midfield back 29-year-old Kenta Kutsuna.

In Edinburgh, in the heart of the capital’s many festivals, he is layered in a Scotland rugby jersey and a Japan rugby jersey as he tells his story, under the auspices of the Japanese Consulate as part of the Festival Fringe.

His warm-up is to be thrown on a tatami by Japanese judoka high performance coach Takafuni Kitahara, also based here in Scotland. Then he takes to the microphone.

He was nervous but had not need to be. In the words of theatre critics, his show was a “must-see.”

He is about to embark on his second season with the Goldenacre club in the revitalised Arnold Clark men’s Premiership, having started his love affair with the game in primary school near Hiroshima in Japan as a five-year-old.

Kenta is, in common parlance, a rugby geek, uber-engaging and enthusiastic.  His knowledge of Scottish Rugby, that Scotland played in the game’s first ever international match in 1871, was spawned in Japan and further honed when his homeland hosted the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

He recites some of the highlights of Scotland’s matches against Japan over the years and flags that 2026 will be the centenary of the Japanese Union.

You would not get that passion from Google.

Kenta played semi-professionally for the Honda club in Japan for four years and went on to become a primary school teacher, but the rugby flame would not be extinguished.

It was then that his life took a turn, which could have had fatal consequences.

One morning, he had gone to the bathroom. “I saw blood in my urine,” he recalled.  It was the start of a two-year fight against bladder cancer.

“The whole time I had this belief that I would recover. I learned that life is not some plan in the future.  You have to live in the moment,” he explained.

Whether through fatigue or the medication he was on as part of his treatment, he recounted one vivid experience in his hospital bed.

“ I was looking at the ceiling and I felt I could see a world map above me. I could see Scotland, and, for me, I wanted to play rugby in the place where it was born. That was my dream.”

The treatment and surgery resulted in him getting the all-clear, though when he told his doctors in Japan that he wanted to “follow his dream and play rugby in Scotland” they were incredulous.

Kenta would not be dissuaded.  “Life happens now.  So, there I was with my, two-year visa, 30 kilos of luggage and a one-way ticket to Scotland. I didn’t really know what would lie ahead,” he said.

He did his own research, emailed clubs and joined Heriot’s.

“I have found the environment and culture of rugby in Scotland to be absolutely amazing!” he said. “To see people work hard at their job and work hard at their rugby at the same time was very different from the set-up in Japan.

“When I came over, I was not sure what I would experience. But truthfully, I have been made so welcome at Heriot’s and at other clubs I have played against. There has been no discrimination. It feels very much that we are the one human race.”

Kenta works in a removals business and is in robust good health.  He is equally in awe of the National Health Service!

Since his arrival in Scotland, he has met Greig Laidlaw – something of a cult figure in Japan off the back of the 2019 tournament and Laidlaw’s subsequent playing and coaching stints there – Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend, whose younger son Luke joined Kenta in the Heriot’s midfield, and the redoubtable Scotland and Edinburgh Rugby back-row forward Jamie Ritchie.

Kenta ends his upbeat presentation with some advice to anyone who is inspired to emulate his path as to what he has learned from his time so far in rugby in Scotland.

“One, smile.  Two, and not just related to rugby, really put your body into what you are trying to achieve; and three, learn how to drink alcohol!

“These have all been part of making my dreams come true.”

Kenta Kutsuna, Scotland’s rugby samurai!