| Countries: | Japan |
| Date: | 7 January – 29 May 2022 |
| Champions: | Saitama Wild Knights |
| Runnersup: | Tokyo Sungoliath |
| Relegated: | Red Hurricanes Osaka Shining Arcs |
| Matches: | 61 |
| Attendance: | 385227 |
| Highest Attendance: | 33,604 (Tokyo Sungoliath vs. Saitama Wild Knights, 29 May 2022) |
| Lowest Attendance: | 1,068 (Honda Heat vs. Green Rockets, 27 May 2022) |
| Top Try Scorer: | |
| Website: | https://league-one.jp/ |
| Prevseason: | 2021 |
| Nextseason: | 2022–23 |
The 2022 Japan Rugby League One – Division 1 was the inaugural season of Japan's new professional three-tier Rugby union competition. It consisted of twelve franchises and played five teams twice and six teams once resulting in each team playing a total of sixteen games home and away.[1] The top four sides at the end of the regular season contested the annual play-offs, whilst the bottom three sides went into a promotion and relegation playoff against the top three sides from the 2022 Japan Rugby League One – Division 2.[2] The champions were the Saitama Wild Knights for the second season in a row. They beat Tokyo Sungoliath in the final 12–18.
A total of twelve teams will participate in the inaugural Division 1 season:
Each team were to play five teams twice and six teams once for a total of sixteen home and away matches.[3] [4]
The relegation play-offs took place on 20 and 28 May 2022.
All times Japan Standard Time (JST) (UTC+9)
Green Rockets v Honda HeatGreen Rockets won 55–34 on aggregate, and therefore both clubs remained in their respective leagues.
Shining Arcs v Mitsubishi DynaBoarsMitsubishi DynaBoars won 44–66 on aggregate, and replaced the Shining Arcs in the Japan Rugby League One – Division 1
Bracket
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The statistics do not include any additional points, tries, etc. that may have been acquired in play-off matches.
| align=center rowspan=2 | 1 | Dylan Riley | Saitama Wild Knights | align=center rowspan=2 | 11 | 0.73 |
| Rakuhei Yamashita | Kobelco Kobe Steelers | 0.92 | ||||
| align=center rowspan=2 | 3 | Israel Folau | Shining Arcs | align=center rowspan=2 | 10 | 0.71 |
| Koki Takeyama | Saitama Wild Knights | 0.67 | ||||
| align=center rowspan=4 | 5 | Tevita Li | Tokyo Sungoliath | align=center rowspan=4 | 9 | 0.90 |
| Kwagga Smith | Shizuoka Blue Revs | 0.82 | ||||
| Jone Naikabula | Toshiba Brave Lupus | 0.60 | ||||
| Ataata Moeakiola | Kobelco Kobe Steelers | 0.70 | ||||
| align=center rowspan=6 | 9 | Damian McKenzie | Tokyo Sungoliath | align=center rowspan=6 | 7 | 0.50 |
| Isaac Lucas | Black Rams Tokyo | 0.58 | ||||
| Kazuhiro Taniguchi | Kubota Spears | 0.47 | ||||
| Chihito Matsui | Yokohama Canon Eagles | 0.50 | ||||
| Malcolm Marx | Kubota Spears | 1.40 | ||||
| Finau Tupa | Kubota Spears | 0.58 |
| Points | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Damian McKenzie | Tokyo Sungoliath | 7 | 48 | 20 | 0 | 191 | 15.92 | |
| 2 | Rikiya Matsuda | Saitama Wild Knights | 1 | 44 | 24 | 1 | 168 | 12.92 | |
| 3 | Bernard Foley | Kubota Spears | 5 | 24 | 16 | 0 | 121 | 15.13 | |
| 4 | Seung-sin Lee | Kobelco Kobe Steelers | 5 | 27 | 6 | 0 | 97 | 7.46 | |
| 5 | Tom Taylor | Toshiba Brave Lupus | 1 | 29 | 11 | 0 | 96 | 12 | |
| align=center rowspan=2 | 6 | SP Marais | Yokohama Canon Eagles | 3 | 27 | 8 | 0 | 93 | 8.45 |
| Lionel Cronjé | Toyota Verblitz | 4 | 23 | 9 | 0 | 93 | 10.33 | ||
| 8 | Gerhard van den Heever | Kubota Spears | 5 | 21 | 7 | 0 | 88 | 6.29 | |
| 9 | Kakeru Okumura | Shizuoka Blue Revs | 1 | 26 | 9 | 0 | 84 | 7.64 | |
| 10 | Aaron Cruden | Kobelco Kobe Steelers | 4 | 21 | 6 | 0 | 80 | 10 |
The Japan Rugby League One holds a foreign player quota. Each Division 1 side are allowed a maximum of three “Category C” players: players who have represented a national team in international rugby that isn't Japan. The Japan Rugby League One also has two other categories of player (A, B), however, there is no limit on the number each team can have for those two category's.[5]