Warner Dearns never wanted to move to Japan. Now, he can't imagine leaving. At 14, Dearns was uprooted from New Zealand's Hawke's Bay when his father, Grant, took a job as a strength and conditioning coach with the NEC Green Rockets, a top-flight Japanese rugby team. The family settled in a satellite city outside Tokyo, but for the teenager, the transition was far from easy.
"I said I didn't want to go," recalls Dearns, now a key figure for Japan's national team. "My sister and I wanted to stay with our grandparents in New Zealand." His mother, Tanya, a former New Zealand netballer, gave up her own coaching career to help the family adjust. The first couple of years were challenging. "It is a very different culture from New Zealand, and the language barrier didn't help much either," he says. "At high school there was no one else who spoke English. I was the kid who stood out, the only one with blond curly hair, so it was lots of fun."
Dearns stood out for other reasons too. Even as a teenager, he was 6ft 8in tall and weighed over 19 stone. In New Zealand, he had been more interested in basketball than rugby, but at Kashiwa Senior High School, one of Japan's strongest rugby schools, he was moulded into a formidable prospect. To complement his size and long stride, his coaches introduced gymnastics to improve his agility, having him hurdle teammates and perform flips. Outside school, he trained at his father's club, working out alongside former England full-back Alex Goode.
That unique rugby education accelerated his development. After qualifying on residency grounds, Dearns made his Japan debut in November 2021 at just 19. By the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France, he was a regular, featuring in all four of Japan's matches. This past season, he has been a revelation. He spent the year on sabbatical with the Hurricanes in New Zealand, where his boundless energy, soft hands, and line-out prowess helped Wellington to their first Super Rugby title in a decade. Playing alongside All Blacks like Jordie Barrett, Ruben Love, Cam Roigard, and Peter Lakai broadened his horizons. "It was awesome, I got to sit back and see how the boys prepare," Dearns says. "The All Blacks guys especially lead the way and are part of the leadership group, I got to enjoy playing footy and watch how they do things."
The possibility of Dearns switching allegiance to the All Blacks was raised in New Zealand rugby circles, but he dismissed it. "It was nothing official, it was all sort of hearsay," he says. "I had a couple of people coming up to me asking me if I would ever think about it. It was never an option for me." Dearns is indebted to Japan for his development, but the country is also now home. He speaks the language fluently, his son was born there, and he was moved to tears during Japan's anthem at the last World Cup. His passion shows in his play. On his last visit to Twickenham in 2022, he set up a try with a break and offload to scrum-half Naoto Saito. In the teams' most recent meeting in Tokyo in 2024, he assisted two more, including a brilliant one-handed grab-and-go in midfield. However, Japan ended up on the wrong end of heavy scorelines on both occasions.
If Japan are to shock England at Twickenham on Saturday, Dearns will need to marshal an extraordinary forward effort and produce more showreel moments. "It is always a set-piece battle and England do a very good job of scrum and line-out, they are obviously very physical," he says. Dearns has come a long way from the reluctant teenager who didn't want to leave New Zealand. Victory on Saturday would be his biggest step yet.
