Rinka Matsuda
Rinka Matsuda is a Japanese rugby union and sevens player. She competed for Japan at the 2021 and 2025 Women's Rugby World Cups. She represented the [Japan women's national rugby Rugby sevens|sevens team|Japanese women's sevens team] at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Rugby career
Sevens
In 2019, Matsuda was just a 17 year old third-year high school student when she made her international sevens debut. It was at the [2019 Japan women's national rugby sevens team|Japan Women's Sevens|Japan leg] of the 2018–19 Women's Sevens Series in Kitakyushu, she started in all three of Japan's matches.She was initially expected to make her Olympic debut in her home city for the 2020 Olympics, but was replaced a week before the Games due to injury.
In 2023, She was a member of the side that won a silver medal at the delayed 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. She competed for Japan at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
XVs
In 2022, She scored a try in Japan's historic 29–10 win over Ireland ahead of the World Cup. She competed for Japan at the delayed 2021 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.She was selected in the Sakura fifteens squad for their tour to the United States in April 2025. On 28 July 2025, she was named in the Japanese side to the Women's Rugby World Cup in England.