Sophie O'Keeffe in action for the Jaguars last year
When Makoto Tosa runs out at Saracens’ StoneX Stadium, it will be the latest and perhaps final part of a rugby journey that may not have been imaginable 10 years ago.
The 37-year-old forward will earn a second Blue this Saturday, March 2, with the first having come as a replacement for the Other Place back in 2009, when he was studying British and European Studies at Oxford University.
For many reasons, though, it is a story of strength and resilience that Tosa is able to be on the pitch at all.
Having already represented Japan under-23 and captained Junior Japan, on returning to his homeland, Tosa played semi-professional rugby with Green Rockets Tokatsu and the performances earned selection to Japan’s wider training squad in Eddie Jones’ first training camp as head coach.
However, the joy was quickly replaced by angst.
“The next day, I had a seizure, fell over and blacked out in the shower room at the clubhouse,” explains Tosa.
“After a brain scan, a doctor diagnosed a brain tumour and explained that I had experienced an epileptic seizure.”
It was a problem that was to persist and hinder Tosa’s development.
“I had tried to manage the seizures by taking drugs for the first two years but they didn’t work,” explains the Executive MBA student at the Cambridge Judge Business School.
“The seizures often happened when I got fatigued but they were unavoidable if you train and play sports professionally. I needed to have a temporal lobectomy surgery to stop the seizures.”
What at one point may have been a place in the Japan squad which beat South Africa at the 2015 Rugby World Cup became a battle to get ever play again.
Only one other person who required brain surgery had been able to return to playing rugby union again, and that was Julian Huxley, who returned to Super Rugby. One of Huxley’s team-mates at the time, Gareth Delve, then became a team-mate of Tosa’s and was able to put the two in contact.
“I got some advice from him,” says Tosa. “He was very helpful, and his presence eased my anxiety.
“It was the first case in Japan and so it was very hard as no-one had come back from an elite sports career from a serious brain surgery.”
A two-year spell out of the game followed, but Tosa had an iron-will that he would return to the pitch, despite the obvious concerns.
“I was very nervous about tackling low and worrying that I would have to have another surgery if I had any concussions,” he says.
“I felt it was a huge achievement to play again, not only for myself but for Japanese society where normally people hide the fact of their brain disease for fear of having a negative impact on their career or personal lives.
“I felt I found another reason why I play rugby, and wanted to encourage people who have been in the same circumstance.”
Tosa, who joined Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars in 2017 as a full-time pro and became team and club captain, went on to make more than 70 matches at the top level, earning a second selection in the Japan Rugby Top League All-Star XV, captain the Asia Pacific Dragons, reach a Japan Cup semi-final and clinch a third-place finish in the Japan Top League.
With the wear and tear taking its toll on the Achilles and calves, Tose decided to call time on his professional career last summer, with thoughts already turning to what to do next.
Professionalism had emerged in Japan after their victory over South Africa in 2015, with the number of fully-professional contracted players increasing all the time and the number of foreign players also going up, with a high presence of New Zealanders, Australians and South Africans.
This helped to form part of the backdrop for Tosa deciding to come to study at Cambridge, in order to acquire business skills, and improve his knowledge and rugby network.
“As a new professional competition (Japan Rugby League One) started two years ago in Japan, all clubs now are struggling with how to run professional sports organisations,” he explains.
“The former competition (Japan Rugby Top League) used to be a corporate league and was basically operated by workers in the company or semi-professional players so there still are not many professional sports business people in the industry.
“Many retired Japanese players get coaching roles and get managerial roles afterwards but they always face big challenges because they have never had such experiences of the full-professional sports business.
“Although I got an offer to coach my current club after hanging up my boots, I thought I should prepare for post-coaching life first.”
Tosa jokes about asking his former Dark Blue team-mates for their permission to study at Cambridge, who told him that the job now is to “increase the value of the Varsity Match”.
He is the holder of the Dan Vickerman Scholarship, which has symmetry to it given that when Tosa won his Blue in 2009 match, the late, great Australian captained the Light Blues to a 31-27 win.
“It means I feel a huge responsibility to contribute to the club,” says Tosa.
“He was a great guy. Later I played rugby in the Shute Shield in Sydney in 2017, the best club rugby competition in New South Wales in Australia.
“I played for Eastwood and knew Dan used to play for Sydney Uni. Having a lot of common ground with him, I feel it is a great honour.”
Tosa will go down in the record books for having won two Blues, for the two different universities, and at two different stadiums.
And the No 8 is hoping to cap off a good year with victory.
“It is a great set of lads, coaches and local supporters in the rugby club,” he says. “The alumni network is insane.
“I’m enjoying playing rugby with a younger generation, having great perspectives and it is a huge learning for me.”
A new theme appears to be developing at Cambridge University RUFC and Ellie and Sophie O’Keeffe will pick up the baton at Saracens’ StoneX Stadium this Saturday (March 2).
In five of the last six Varsity Matches, a pair of sisters have represented the Light Blues.
From 2017 to 2021 - with no match played in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic - twins Fi and Jenni Shuttleworth earned Blues, and sisters Buzz and Poppy Gilks took up the mantle last year.
Ellie and Sophie O’Keeffe will continue what is becoming a sibling tradition in 2024, having both made the transition from swimming to rugby union within the past 18 months.
Ellie, who is in the starting XV, was the first to swap sports, trading the butterfly and individual medley for soaring down the wings at Grange Road.
Having had an experience of rugby at a couple of taster sessions in her first year, the sixth-year Emmanuel College medical student made the decision to make the switch in December 2022.
“When I realised I was going to quit swimming, I was just looking for another team sport because we had played so many team sports growing up,” says Ellie.
“Hetta (Friend) is in my year and she also came to lectures in sports kit, so I asked what she played, and she just convinced me that rugby was great. I joined, and realised she was right.
“One of my favourite bits about rugby is the fact that it’s such a mental game as well as such a physical game. I’ve never really played a sport with set-plays before and you have to think so much about your specific position as well as the game play.
“I really like that mental side of it as well, and then you get to whack people.”
Ellie earned her first rugby union Blue in the 31-12 defeat last year, by which point Sophie had made a rugby union debut to remember.
Having previously played some touch rugby, the fourth-year Emmanuel College engineering student was asked to appear for the CURUFC third team, the Jaguars.
Ellie takes up the story.
“Basically, one of the coaches came up to me and said ‘I’ve heard you have a sister, who has played touch, does she want to play the Varsity Match?’ and I said, ‘Of course she will!’.
“I taught Sophie how to tackle the week before the match because obviously she had only played touch.
“Then, she got put on for 15 minutes and scored four tries!”
It capped an impressive 47-0 win for the Jaguars, and meant that rugby union was instantly sold to Sophie, who had also been a swimmer, specialising in the backstroke.
“I really missed having a proper team sport,” says the 22-year-old. “The social life was great in swimming but it’s still an individual sport so I definitely missed that.
“I did play touch rugby so I felt like maybe the gap wasn’t so big. I think I didn’t realise how tactical it was until I joined and started playing. It is a very strategic and mental game as well, which I really like.”
The sisters have a sporty background, having played a range of different disciplines whilst studying at Dubai College, and they are also extremely close.
They used to swim together for six to seven two-hour sessions a week, would go to the gym together three times a week, and are also housemates.
Living together proved particularly helpful in Sophie’s learning of the game, as she would pick her older sister’s brain regarding tactics and game play.
It is therefore interesting to hear how they describe each other’s key strengths and attributes.
“Sophie is very athletic so she has got good ball skills, she is very quick and very strong, and she also doesn’t really have very much fear on the rugby pitch,” says 23-year-old Ellie.
“If there is a tackle that needs making, Sophie will be making it. She is also very quick at learning as well. We have pendulum work at the moment where when the ball is on the opposite side, the winger comes back so when I’m full-back, we are working like a pendulum in the back field and she is good at picking that up.”
And Sophie says: ““I think everyone agrees that Ellie is a very strong player on the team. Similarly, she is always there. Whenever we have our rucks, if no-one is going to be there then Ellie will get in there, she will clear them, she will get in the way.
“She is very athletic and agile. Her skills are very good as well. She is also very encouraging.
“I think, obviously, she has a lot of skill but from a team-mate, supportive stand-point, she is very good at encouraging the team on. She is a very energetic, calming and supportive person.”
Their parents will be flying over from Dubai to support their daughters at the StoneX, and Ellie and Sophie cannot wait for the game to arrive.
“It is going to be huge,” says Sophie, and Ellie adds: “One of the things that has been nice about going to the same college is we have all these shared experiences that we can talk about.”