Gold for Rhys & Bourbon KZ

With the eyes of the sporting world turning towards Japan ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the opportunity to play in Japan with one of the countries oldest clubs was too good to miss for Rhys Howden. We caught up with the three-time Olympian, who has recently returned from Kashiwazaki where he played with local side, Bourbon KZ. 

Welcome back! How was Japan and playing with Bourbon KZ?

Thanks! It was amazing. Bourbon KZ plays on the coast at Kashiwazaki, which is just north of Tokyo. Everyone was so accommodating and friendly, especially at the club. We had a great welcome and got the uniform, which was pretty cool. I found out that the competition has been running over 92 years and that Japan has a huge water polo history. Bourbon is a huge club with junior teams, university sides and senior teams. The club hasn't won the competition for six years, so being a part of the team that won the gold medal was huge. 

Katsuyuki Tanamura (men's national team goalkeeper) plays for Bourbon, you've obviously played against him many times. Is that how the opportunity came about for Blake and yourself?

Sort of. I was asked four or five years ago to play for the side but I just didn't have the time. Joe, AJ, and Richie have all played for the side in the past. This year during our World Cup preparations, Elvis sat me down and told me about the opportunity. I said why not! I could figure out work later. Blakey also said yes, so the two of us got the call-up and had an absolute ball.

The Japanese team plays a unique style of water polo, was it difficult adapting to their style of play? 

The team we played against, their head coach is the Japanese men's coach. They play the exact same style and most of their players are in the national team. It was like playing the national side in the final, which was pretty challenging for us. However, we had four national players in our side who were in key positions - goalie, centre, outside shooters - which gave us an advantage. Our tactics for that game were just as weird as the opposition's tactics. For example, we played three in attack and three in defence at the half-way to stop their counter-attacks. So for Blakey and myself, we just had to adapt and adjust, which paid off in the end as we won 10-8!

You overcame a different playing style, how did you cope with the language barrier? 

That was really funny! Bourbon's coach is from Montenegro, who coached the side in 2012 and he has been on board with the side for the past three or four seasons. He actually talks Italian to the Japanese coach and then the Japanese coach translates this to the team and then one of the players translates this into English for the two of us! Most of the guys can speak a bit of English, along with the coach but it's easier for him to translate through the Japanese coach. The meetings were pretty interesting with all the different languages flying around. 

Some of the boys were keen to learn English, so we taught them a few words, which was pretty fun and before you ask, we kept away from the swear words! Blake and I tried to learn a bit of Japanese, but we got nothing, it was so hard! We just stuck to the basics. When we first got there, we went to a restaurant and we were just smashing it. The lady who ran the place was asking how we learnt to use chopsticks and was impressed with how well we could use them. I'm not sure she was aware that we have great Japanese food and chopsticks here in Australia! But yeah, a few places were pressed with our chopstick use, it still makes me laugh! 

Looking ahead to 2020, you've had a taste of Japan, do you think the Tokyo Olympics will be an entirely different experience to what we have seen at previous Olympics? 

Oh yeah, it will be unbelievable, to be honest. The pool we played in was the Olympic pool from the previous Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and I believe it will be the 2020 venue. It's immaculate, it's so clean, you couldn't tell that it's over 50 years old. I think it will be so efficient and well run, the logistics side of things won't be a problem. The rooms will be interesting though, as they are quite small! So, yeah, we will see how we go with that! 

With a home Olympics, do you think Japan will be a dark horse in the water polo competition?

Yeah, they will certainly be ones to watch, especially if they keep improving. Obviously, now if we play new rules in Tokyo, they might have to adjust as I don't think the new rules suit their current style of play, so it all depends really. The Japanese Federations are investing a lot of money into sport at the moment, so if you've got the funding, training, and coaches, it's certainly going to help. They are always hard to play against, so they are ones to watch.