Brown Says Japan “100 Percent Ready” to Play Fiji

KAMAISHI, Japan (July 26) – Japan assistant coach Tony Brown said Friday said the Brave Blossoms were looking forward to finally playing a test match following months of training and warm-up games under the guise of the Wolf Pack.
Japan play Fiji on Saturday at Kamaishi Recovery Memorial Rugby Ground and Brown said “it was important to get started,” given the Rugby World Cup kicks off in eight-weeks time.
“The team is 100 percent ready for the game. We have done a lot of training and it has been tough. We need a games for the players mentally and for the coaches to see where we are at.”
Despite the long time in camp, Brown said the conditions and the opposition would ensure things are tough.
“We will be rusty and there will be a lot of mistakes,” he said. “But as long as we implement the game plan then we will be happy as coaches.”
Brown said the Brave Blossoms would need to use their line speed in defence “to shut down the space. The Fijians are all good off-loaders and we need to take away the time” to force them into errors.
With both sides favouring a fast, unstructured style of rugby, Brown said he was looking forward to “an entertaining game. If we can create space and momentum then we can create opportunities.”
“We have been training well but there is nothing like a game.”
Fiji coach John McKee agreed with Brown saying “it will be a fast game.”
“We need our defence to work together as we will come under pressure and we need to resist the fast Japanese style of rugby.”
McKee said the Fijians had improved greatly since 2015 and were concentrating on playing for the full 80 minutes at “the intensity we want.”
Saturday’s game kicks off at 2.50 p.m. local time and is the same venue Fiji will play Uruguay in the Rugby World Cup on Sept. 25.