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Cape Town - Japan’s Rugby World Cup victory over South Africa has made headlines back home, with more popular sports forced to take a back seat.
Japan caused arguably the greatest upset in the history of rugby union when they upset the Springboks 34-32 in Brighton last weekend.
Their coach, Eddie Jones, said he was pleased to see his team getting the limelight in Japan, where the Brave Blossoms have become overnight sensations.
“Apparently rugby’s on the news now, which is unusual in Japan. It’s usually sumo, baseball, so the big sumo guys have had to move away for rugby,” Jones told the Rugby World Cup’s official website.
“It’s fantastic for the sport, fantastic for rugby. That can only be great for rugby going forward. The sport always talks about going global but an Asian country beating a top tier country makes it a real global sport.”
Japan next face Scotland at Kingsholm in Gloucester on Wednesday and they are eager to continue on their winning ways.
“We didn’t come here to be a splash in the pond. We want to make a go at this World Cup,” said Jones.
Teams:
Japan:
15 Ayumu Goromaru, 14 Kotaro Matsushima, 13 Male Sau, 12 Yu Tamura, 11 Kenki Fukuoka, 10 Harumichi Tatekawa, 9 Fumiaki Tanaka, 8 Amanaki Mafi, 7 Michael Broadhurst, 6 Michael Leitch (captain), 5 Justin Ives, 4 Luke Thompson, 3 Hiroshi Yamashita, 2 Shota Horie, 1 Keita Inagaki
Substitutes: 16 Takeshi Kizu, 17 Masataka Mikami, 18 Kensuke Hatakeyama, 19 Shinya Makabe, 20 Shoji Ito, 21 Hendrik Tui, 22 Atsushi Hiwasa, 23 Karne Hesketh
Scotland:
TBA
