| Date: | 17 December 2022 – 20 May 2023 |
| Countries: | Japan |
| Teams: | 12 |
| Champions: | Spears Tokyo Bay |
| Runnersup: | Saitama Wild Knights |
| Promoted: | Hanazono Liners Sagamihara DynaBoars |
| Relegated: | Green Rockets Tokatsu |
| Matches: | 106 |
| Attendance: | 647420 |
| Highest Attendance: | 41,794 (Saitama Wild Knights vs. Spears Tokyo Bay, 20 May 2023) |
| Top Try Scorer: | (18) |
| Website: | https://league-one.jp/en |
| Prevseason: | 2022 |
| Nextseason: | 2023–24 |
The 2022–23 Japan Rugby League One – Division 1 season was the twentieth top flight league season played from December 2022 through to May 2023,[1] in the newly rebranded Japan Rugby League One. The competition consisted of twelve teams, including two promoted teams from Division 2, Sagamihara Dynaboars and Hanazono Liners.[1]
The format and schedule was announced on 16 September 2022. It consisted of a round-robin fixture, before entering into a knockout style play-off for the final four teams. It featured two conferences (A, B). Teams in each conference played the teams in their respective conference twice (one at home, one away), and six matches against all the teams in the other conference, three being at home and three away. Each team played a total of sixteen seasonal fixtures, plus additional play-off matches, including relegation play-offs.[2]
| Club | Outgoing coach | Date of vacancy | Incoming coach | Date of appointment | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kobe Steelers | Dave Dillon | August 2022 | August 2022 | [3] [4] | ||
| Sagamihara Dynaboars | June 2022 | July 2022 | [5] [6] | |||
| Toyota Verblitz | Simon Cron | March 2022 | August 2022 | [7] [8] |
Each team were to play five teams twice and six teams once for a total of sixteen home and away matches.[9]
The relegation play-offs took place between 5 May and 14 May 2023.[2]
All times Japan Standard Time (JST) (UTC+9)
Sagamihara DynaBoars v Shuttles Aichi
Green Rockets Tokatsu v Mie Heat
Hanazono Liners v Urayasu D-Rocks
Bracket
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