Sakura Fifteen Team Announced for Opening Rugby World Cup Pool Match

Japan Head Coach Lesley McKenzie has today named the Sakura Fifteen team to take on Canada in Japan’s opening Pool B match at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Kicking off at 15:15 New Zealand local time, 11:15 Japan Standard Time on Sunday, October 9, the Sakura Fifteen will be looking to make a strong start in the tournament against the number three ranked Canadians.

The side is captained by Saki Minami in her 27^th test at loose-head prop, while the impressive Sachiko Kato, who spent the last two seasons playing in England with the Exeter Chiefs, will earn her 12^th cap at tighthead prop. The barnstorming Seina Saito, Japan’s most capped player (32 caps) will add her considerable leadership and experience to the backrow at blindside flanker, while 30 cap utility forward Misaki Suzuki returns to the team via the reserves bench, having missed the last two matches against Ireland and New Zealand.

The exiting halves pairing of livewire scrumhalf Megumi Abe (11 caps) and impressive fly-half Ayasa Otsuka (10 caps) continues, with the pair looking to ignite the Sakura Fifteens’ attack after being starved of attacking opportunities by the Black Ferns two weeks ago at Eden Park. Try scoring, speed-machine Rinka Matsuda (6 caps) returns to fullback after playing on the left-wing against New Zealand and will relish the extra space from which to attack.

Sakura Fifteen Head Coach, Lesley McKenzie commented:

“We’re really excited about our first World Cup game. Our preparations are over and we’re looking forward to implementing our style of play against a really strong adversary in Canada. They’re a confident team with ball in hand, so we need to be able to consistently stop their attack, which means making our tackles accurately, something we know we can do, as we’ve done it this year against Ireland, South Africa, Australia and Fiji. Canada also take a lot of pride in their set piece so we will need to neutralise that as best as possible in order to give us the best platform to play our brand of rugby.”

Sunday’s match will be telecast live in Japan from 11:00 JST via JSports Two and will available live and via catch-up on JSports On-demand.

Following their opening match against Canada in Whangarei, the Sakura Fifteen will play their remaining two Pool B matches against the USA on Saturday, October 15, also in Whangarei, and Italy on Sunday, October 23, at Waitakere Stadium in Auckland.

Team List:

No.	Name	Team	Height	Weight	DOB	Caps
1	Saki MINAMI	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	163	72	1995/11/18	26
2	Nijiho NAGATA	International Budo Univ.	162	78	2000/12/6	9
3	Sachiko KATO	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	164	89	2000/2/19	11
4	Yuna SATO	Tokyo Sankyu Phoenix	170	75	1998/9/11	7
5	Maki TAKANO	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	170	76	1995/8/17	17
6	Seina SAITO	MIE PEARLS	164	73	1992/5/30	32
7	Iroha NAGATA	ARUKAS QUEEN KUMAGAYA	167	72	1998/12/21	16
8	Ayano NAGAI	YOKOHAMA TKM	168	84	1997/10/14	11
9	Megumi ABE	ARUKAS QUEEN KUMAGAYA	147	53	1998/4/28	11
10	Ayasa OTSUKA	RKU GRACE	163	65	1999/5/5	10
11	Komachi IMAKUGI	ARUKAS QUEEN KUMAGAYA / Rissho Univ.	158	61	2002/1/6	10
12	Shione NAKAYAMA	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	166	70	1999/1/18	8
13	Mana FURUTA	Tokyo Sankyu Phoenix	167	70	1997/11/16	15
14	Hinano NAGURA	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	170	76	1997/3/22	11
15	Rinka MATSUDA	Nippon Sport Science Univ.	170	77	2001/12/5	6
16	Hinata KOMAKI	Nippon Sport Science Univ.	166	78	2001/5/9	3
17	Misaki SUZUKI	Tokyo Sankyu Phoenix	164	66	1992/4/9	30
18	Makoto LAVEMAI	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	163	73	1997/7/2	18
19	Kie TAMAI	MIE PEARLS	168	79	1992/10/24	14
20	Otoka YOSHIMURA	ARUKAS QUEEN KUMAGAYA / Rissho Univ.	174	84	2001/5/15	5
21	Moe TSUKUI	YOKOGAWA Musashino Artemi-Stars	153	54	2000/3/28	19
22	Minori YAMAMOTO	MIE PEARLS	169	70	1996/12/9	21
23	Kyoko HOSOKAWA	MIE PEARLS	164	71	1999/7/8	8