Japan ready for Samoa clash

MILTON KEYNES, England (Oct. 2 ) – Japan coach Eddie Jones said he was looking forward to Saturday’s Rugby World Cup Pool B clash with Samoa at Stadium MK, and that the recent game between Wales and Fiji had given him a lot of confidence.

“We saw Fiji scrum very hard against Wales (Thursday). The way our scrum has developed over the last 24 months, we take a lot of confidence into the game.”

When asked what instructions he had given his team, Jones said: “Samoa are very much a momentum team. We need to minimize the momentum that they get from their set piece then conversely when it is our set piece we need equally quick ball. Samoa have a really big pack so the scrum will be crucial.”

“We need to make sure we stay in it for the whole 80 minutes. There’s not going to be much in it.”

Jones said he hoped his side would be able to overcome their height and weight disadvatage by running the Samoans ragged.

“Tomorrow is going to be a massive game. We need to move the ball around. They want to wrestle and we don’t want to wrestle. They want to put us up against the ropes, we want to be coming jib and jab style, moving. It’s as simple as that. We want to win points with jabs, they (Samoa) want to win with knockouts.”

Prop Kensuke Hatakeyama said the team were fully focussed on reaching the quarterfinals.

“It’s the most important game to achieve a place in the top eight. We have had good preparation for a week and must do our best.”

It was a theme repeated by Jones.

“Before the tournament our target was to reach the quarterfinals and everyone thought that was a joke and now we have put ourselves in a position to do that. If we do that, we can win even more fans in Japan. Twenty million people watched the Scotland game. That’s the population of Australia including all the kangaroos.”