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Japan faces eligibility and injury issues as squad named for Pacific Nations Cup
By Online Editors
Coach Jamie Joseph has whittled down his 42-man World Cup training squad to 31 for the upcoming Pacific Nations Cup. A number of the cuts, however, were forced due to the unavailability of various players.
Australian-born Rahboni Warren-Vosayaco, a Sunwolves fan favourite, will not meet World Rugby's eligibility requirements for Japan by the time the World Cup rolls around in September so has naturally been dropped from the squad.
Warren-Vosayaco, who primarily operates in the loose forwards, was sometimes selected in the midfield during the Super Rugby season. His ability to cover five different positions off the bench would have been invaluable for the Brave Blossoms throughout the year.
Warren-Vosayaco isn't the first player that Japan might have expected to have available to be ruled out recently due to not meeting eligibility requirements. 21-year-old Ben Gunter, also born in Australia, was ruled ineligible last month. Gunter also plays in the loose forwards and notched 11 caps for the Sunwolves this year.
To add to Joseph's loose-forward woes, Grant Hattingh has been ruled out of the World Cup due to a groin injury. Johanessburg-born Hattingh was expected to debut for Japan during the Pacific Nations Cup.
Still, even with a number of players unavailable, the loose forwards are shaping up as one the Brave Blossoms' strengths.
Hendrik Tui, Amanaki Lelei Mafi and captain Michael Leitch have ample experience at all levels of the game whilst well-travelled Super Rugby player Pieter Labuschagne has now met the requirements to suit up too. They will be joined by Yoshitaka Tokunaga and Shunsuke Nunomaki and Kazuki Himeno who all have fewer than 10 caps for the national side.
Leitch has not played a match in over six months and is still only a 'maybe' to suit up in the PNC.
The other injury-hit area of the squad is in the front row.
Keita Inagaki (25 caps), Yusuke Kizu (0), Shogo Mura (5) and Asaeli Ai Value (5) are the only props selected in the squad. Jiwon Koo, Masataka Mikami, Hiroshi Yamashita and Koki Yamamoto were all named in the initial training squad but have been scratched due to injury.
Joseph will be hoping that no further injuries hit his team before the Pacific Nations Cup kicks off next weekend. Of course, the real prize is the World Cup later in the year, but there's plenty of water to go under the bridge between now and then.
Japan squad for Pacific Nations Cup
Prop - Keita Inagaki (25 caps), Yusuke Kizu (0), Shogo Miura (5), Asaeli Ai Valu (5)
Hooker - Atsushi Sakate (13), Shota Horie (58), Kosuke Horikoshi (2)
Lock - Luke Thompson (64), Wimpie van der Walt (9), Uwe Helu (11), James Moore (0)
Loose forward - Hendrik Tui (43), Yoshitaka Tokunaga (10), Shunsuke Nunomaki (7), Michael Leitch (59), Pieter Labuschagne (0), Kazuki Himeno (9), Amanaki Lelei Mafi (22)
Halfback - Kaito Shigeno (7), Fumiaki Tanaka (69), Yutaka Nagare (15)
First Five - Yu Tamura (54), Rikiya Matsuda (16)
Midfield - William Tupou (6), Ryoto Nakamura (16), Timothy Lafaele (14)
Outside Back - Kenki Fukuoka (30), Ataata Moeakiola (3), Lomano Lava Lemeki (8), Kotaro Matsushima (30), Ryohei Yamanaka (12)
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Latest Comments
Yeah I actually think it was Havili that took it off him. Not bad himself, but on the advice of Razor, who didn't even pursue it and use Havili on a split bench as 10 cover?
One huge cluster#$@% but I think you could be right, I liked O'Connor when he won at the Reds and I've just got a funny feeling he's going to dominate Super Rugby, kinda like how Cooper came back to the Wallabies as an experienced head and spat out South Africa. I think James could do the same with the Blues and other Aus sides. I'd really love Rivez to get a lot of minutes though.
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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