Patience, courage key to victories, say Wisemantel, Hirose

COLWYN BAY (Nov. 15) Japan stand-in coach Scott Wisemantel praised the courage of his team after they beat Russia 40-13 on Friday evening.

“The players adapted exceptionally well,” he said after a poor performance that saw the teams turn around all square at 13-13. “The first half was less than ordinary. We made seven handling errors and all when we had the Russians under extreme pressure. But we rectified it in the second half. The players showed enormous courage when they could have become very conservative. It was a great effort.”

Wisemantel said the main problem in the first half had been ball control.

“If you can’t see who you are passing to, then you shouldn’t pass,” he said. “We needed to show greater patience.”

Japan captain Toshiaki Hirose said the key to the win was the improved patience of the players in the second half.

“The first-performance performance was not good,” he said. “I told the players we shouldn’t blame the person making a mistake. We needed to encourage one another and keep reminding ourselves to keep the ball for one more phase. In the second half we were a lot more patient.”

Wisemantel praised Hirose’s leadership saying: “We spoke about a couple of key points at halftime and the captain made sure the game plan was executed perfectly in the second half.”

Flyhalf Kosei Ono said the players hadn’t respected the ball or the opposition in the first half and that “we were our own worst enemy.”

However, he said the team had responded well to Wisemantel’s halftime talk.

“We got our reward in the second half. But today was a good lesson for us,” he said.