Shizuoka is best known as Japan’s biggest producer of green tea. As the Brave Blossoms prepare to take on Ireland at the Pacific coast venue on Saturday, the home side and their supporters may not like what the matcha leaves are telling them.
Jamie Joseph’s side will have needed every day of their generous seven-day turnaround to prepare for a match that will require a repeat of their 2015 heroics against the Springboks if they are to delay Ireland’s unstoppable rise to the top of pool A.
The New Zealander appears to be among those who view a meeting with the Irish as an opportunity for rest and experimentation before Japan’s decisive remaining pool fixtures against Scotland and Samoa. The captain, Michael Leitch, will begin the match on the bench, while the No 8 Amanaki Mafi is back to full fitness, with the prop Jiwon Koo, lock Luke Thompson – at 38 the oldest player in the tournament – and full-back Ryohei Yamanaka promoted from the reserves.
William Tupou has been switched to wing for the first time in his Test career. Pieter Labuschagne, the South Africa-born flanker, will captain Japan in Leitch’s absence. “Michael’s obviously our captain but if we’re going to be successful in achieving our goals, we’re going to have to have impact and experience off the bench. All the best teams in the world have a great bench,” Joseph said.
“If we’re going to be in a position to win the match, it’s going to come down to the last five or 10 minutes and we’ll need clear leadership. As a coach, I get to have both things that we need, we have in-form players who are playing very well and we have experience coming on.”
Ireland have fond memories of Shizuoka, where the stands will be a sea of red and white speckled with Irish green. When the teams last met there two years ago, the Irish ran out 50-22 winners – a result that roughly reflects their average against Japan over the past 28 years.
Japan’s players can do little other than talk up their chances, knowing they took a bonus point on the opening night against Russia in a game they could not have afforded to lose. “The whole public is favouring the Ireland side, they are expected to win,” the scrum-half Yutaka Nagare said after Joseph revealed the changes – a match organisers said is likely to be confirmed as the most-viewed live event in Japan this year.
“But we are pretty confident and we truly believe we can prove them wrong. It’s about mentally believing that, getting the detail right, and having the confidence in our training and what we’ve accumulated through the tournament. We are confident we can beat anyone. Whether Ireland are the best team in the world, we’ve prepared well, so we’re confident.”
After a week that decided which two teams will compete in baseball’s Japan Series next month, most of the country’s supootsu shimbun – sports newspapers – relegated the buildup to the Ireland match to the inside pages on Friday.
Sports Nippon did, though, devote a double-page spread to Joseph’s team selection, predicting Saturday’s game would be the “battle of the high punt” and claiming that Japan would be able to exploit Ireland’s “weak points.”
A subhead implored the players to summon the spirit of Brighton 2015 and carry off what would be the upset of the tournament so far. Similar sentiments informed front-page coverage in Nikkan Sports, which called on Joseph to “lead Japan to a miracle.”
Media optimism has spread to sections of the team, with the wing Lomano Lemeki, who will join Leitch on the bench, articulating every Japanese fan’s fantasy with the bold prediction that they would prevail 33-26.
The reality, as Joseph put it, is that Japan will have to “play the game of their lives”. That said, public expectation is weighing less on his players after the victory over Russia and an acceptance that Ireland, the world’s top-ranked side until this week, could bring them crashing down to earth, if only briefly.
That can only help Japanese players, who admitted they had wobbled under the spotlight against Russia, missing 19 tackles, conceding 18 turnovers and showing a hesitancy beneath the high ball that Ireland can be expected to exploit mercilessly if repeated. But there is still belief – among the squad and the country at large – that Japan can lose the battle against Ireland but still win the war.
Joseph acknowledged his players would have to reach the knockout stages to secure rugby a legacy in a country where the oval ball will soon compete with the climax of the baseball season for the public’s attention.
“It’s a huge game for us and these players will need to play the best game of their lives,” he said. “That’s what they’ll need to be successful on Saturday. In terms of legacy for the tournament, on our goals, as a team we want to do something we’ve never done before and that’s make the top eight.”
Eddie Jones’s masterminding of the Brighton Miracle has been immortalised in a film of the same name released on the eve of the tournament. A similar feat against Ireland would secure Joseph’s legacy in his adopted home as the man remembered for the sequel – the Shizuoka Shock.
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Team guides
Pool A: Ireland, Japan, Russia, Samoa, Scotland
Pool B: Canada, Italy, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa
Pool C: Argentina, England, France, Tonga, USA
Pool D: Australia, Fiji, Georgia, Uruguay, Wales
