Japan skipper Himeno withdrawn from team for Chile
Japan head coach Jamie Joseph has been forced to make a late change to his team to face Chile in Toulouse on Sunday, with captain Kazuki Himeno being forced to withdraw due to injury.
Assistant coach Tony Brown said yesterday: "He has got a bit of a calf problem, but we hope he will come right in time for the game. We won’t know until tomorrow (Sunday) morning.” He has now failed to recover.
As a result Jack Cornelsen moves to No.8, with Amanaki Saumaki coming into the second row and Yutaka Nagare leading the side from scrumhalf.
Meanwhile, former captain Michael Leitch is set to play in his fourth World Cup on the blindside.
“The team has been working really hard, training hard, getting super fit. We have been testing our game and we feel we are in a good place both with our defence and our attack," said Brown. "We’re just focusing on making sure that we execute both on attack and being really good defensively. Chile have got some dangerous players so we are going to have to shut them down with our defence.
“I feel that if we can play our style of rugby, which is fast and skilful, then we are going to create a lot of opportunities.
“Four years ago in Japan we played some amazing rugby. We have been building since then to improve. Defensively we have improved. That’s going to be a big part of our game.
“Our kicking game has improved. Hopefully we can add stronger defence, more of a kicking game and pressure, to our attack which is always Japan’s point of difference.”
UPDATED JAPAN TEAM:
1 Keita Inagaki
2 Atsushi Sakate
3 Jiwon Gu
4 Amanaki Saumaki
5 Amato Fakatava
6 Michael Leitch
7 Kanji Shimokawa
8 Jack Cornelsen
9 Yutaka Nagare (c)
10 Rikiya Matsuda
11 Jone Naikabula
12 Ryoto Nakamura
13 Dylan Riley
14 Kotaro Matsushima
15 Semisi Masirewa
REPLACMENTS:
16 Shota Horie
17 Craig Millar
18 Asaeli Ai Valu
19 Warner Dearns
20 Shota Fukui
21 Naoto Saito
22 Tomoki Osada
23 Lomano Lemeki
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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