Boks ripe for picking
Japan coach Eddie Jones has urged his team to chop down the Springboks ahead of their Rugby World Cup opener.
|||Brighton – Japan coach Eddie Jones has wasted no time in firing the first salvo and urged his team to chop down the Springboks ahead of their Rugby World Cup opener at the Brighton Community Stadium on Saturday.
The former Wallaby coach, Jones, and advisor to the Springboks 2007 World Cup winning team believes that the Springboks are vulnerable after an indifferent international season leading up to the World Cup and that his team will approach Saturday’s encounter with nothing but victory on their minds.
“We want a winning game. So to win the game we have to compete physically, whatever ball we get we got to move it around. Whatever ball they get we got to chop them down,” said Jones on Thursday at his team announcement press conference in Brighton.
The Japanese are fully aware that nobody is giving them a chance of doing anything spectacular in their pool as they face tough opponents in South Africa, Samoa, Scotland and the USA.
But Jones believes this World Cup is the perfect platform for his team to make a name for themselves as a rugby playing nation ahead of them hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
While it might seem like a pipe dream for Japan to beat the Springboks, Jones feels as though the Springboks are ripe for the taking after succumbing to Argentina for the first time in their history during the Rugby Championship in August.
“We’ve come to this World Cup to gain respect for Japan and we want at the end of this tournament for people to say that Japan is a respected rugby country. It hasn’t been up to here and that is our job in every game we are looking to do that. If we play well enough we are going to win games of rugby. Players have had a good preparation and they are looking forward to taking on South Africa. South Africa have had a tough time of late and they haven’t done well in the Rugby Championship. First time in their great history they lost to Argentina, who would have thought South Africa would lose to Argentina? So you never know what is around the corner,” Jones added.
In all the optimism that Jones has for his team, he does understand that his team will have to withstand the might of Springbok rugby whose foundation is built on brute force, the set-piece and crushing defence which the Japanese could be found wanting.
“It’s the first game of the World Cup and something we’ve worked very hard on for the past four years. It’s David versus Goliath, everyone usually fights with spears so we got to fight with other things so it is fighting those things we can fight with. But the central piece of any rugby game is the set-piece and that is an area to be in the game we must compete,” Jones said.
Regardless of what the bookies, sceptics and rugby pundits say, Jones has the unshakable belief that his team have the perfect opportunity to turn world rugby on its head by beating the Springboks.
“They’ve got the greatest winning record in World Cup history, a massive physical team with plenty of experience. We’ve got the least winning record in the World Cup, smallest team in the World Cup and the most experienced Japanese team ever. It is a great opportunity for us and we are looking forward to it”.
Japan team: Ayumu Goromaru, Akihito Yamada, Male Sau, Craig Wing, Kotaro Matsushima, Kosei Ono, Fumiaki Tanaka, Hendrik Tui, Michael Broadhurst, Michael Lietch, Hitoshi Ono, Luke Thompson, Kensuke Hatakeyama, Shota Horie, Masataka Mikami. Replacements: Takeshi Kizu, Keita Inagaki, Hiroshi Yamashita, Shinya Makabe, Amanaki Hiwasa, Harumichi Tatekawa, Karne Hesketh.