Pool B Scotland V Japan 14:30 Weds 23/092015

Stheno

Following Japans epic victory over South Africa on Saturday, the Brave Blossoms have now leapfrogged Scotland and are 11th in the world rankings, with Scotland one behind in 12th.

Coach Eddie Jones has made six changes to the team who played Saturday, and is confident that if they stay with Scotland to half time, that they have the fitness to win.

Vern Cotter has named a strong team which includes the South African Josh Strauss on the bench.


Teams

Scotland: Stuart Hogg; Tommy Seymour, Mark Bennett, Matt Scott, Sean Lamont; Finn Russell, Greig Laidlaw; Al Dickinson, Ross Ford, WP Nel, Grant Gilchrist, Jonny Gray, Ryan Wilson, John Hardie, Dave Denton. Replacements: Fraser Brown, Ryan Grant, Jon Welsh, Richie Gray, Josh Strauss, Henry Pyrgos, Peter Horne, Sean Maitland.

Japan: Ayumu Goromaru; Kotaro Matsushima, Male Sa'u, Yu Tamura, Kenki Fukuoka; Tatekawa, Harumichi Tanaka; Keita Inagaki, Shota Horie, Hiroshi Yamash1ta, Luke Thompson, Justin Ives, Michael Leitch, Michael Broadhurst, Amanaki Mafi.
Replacements: Takeshi Kizu, Masataka Mikami, Kensuke Hatakeyama, Shinya Makabe, Shoji Ito, Hendrik Tui, Atsushi Hiwasa, Karne Hesketh

Following Saturdays gripping match, sports stores in Ireland have run out of Japan jerseys, and many have adopted the Blossoms as their second team.

The bookies however are holding faith with Scotland with current odds being 1/7 for a Scotland win, and 5/1 for a Japanese win.

Looking forward to this, and hoping Japan do it

irishbucsfan

Stheno wrote: »

Hiroshi Yama****a,

:pac:

Stheno

irishbucsfan wrote: »

:pac:

Fecking swear filters

Bridge93

I'll say Scotland by 15 points

thebaz

really looking forward to this - must win for both teams, for different reasons - winer should qualify

sydthebeat

Fumi to absolutely school laidlaw around the field, but scottish gnarliness plus some sweet back line moves will give them a non bonus point victory, with japan scrapping to within 7

Ceadog

I'd love to see Japan win again but that 4 day turnaround will be killer. Still, if they're in it with 20 to go I'd fancy them to sneak it. They've got buckets of mental strength, something which Scotland have lacked over the past decade.

gamma001

5/1 seems decent odds

Tin Foil Hat

Is there anywhere I'll be able to find this on the radio? I'll be stuck in my van tomorrow.

bilston

I'm taking a half day tomorrow to get home and enjoy some great midweek rugby kicking off with this game. 3 games back to back on a Wednesday afternoon/evening...rugby Heaven!!!!

Stheno

bilston wrote: »

I'm taking a half day tomorrow to get home and enjoy some great midweek rugby kicking off with this game. 3 games back to back on a Wednesday afternoon/evening...rugby Heaven!!!!

Yeah I got lucky was supposed to be onsite in a non rugby friendly customer, but they cancelled tomorrow for other reasons

total former

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

Is there anywhere I'll be able to find this on the radio? I'll be stuck in my van tomorrow.

BBC Radio 5

pc7

Really looking forward to this one after their heroics the weekend.

Pudsy33

I'll be in college for this so I'll have to stream it from down the back of the lecture hall. Who'd have thought, when the fixture were announced, that Scotland vs Japan on a Wednesday afternoon would he once of the must - see games of the group stages.

bunnyarmstrong

Snap. No hiding at the back in my lab though. I used to live and played a bit of rugby in Japan. Raging I'm missing it. I missed the match on the weekend as well, caught only fleeting glimpses of it because my stupid brother had to get married and stuff.

日本行く！

Pink Fairy

I know some people are quite against Ireland using project players and the 3 year qualifying rule in Ireland,
But is not the success of Japan built on this very rule, and shows how necessary it is?

Pink Fairy

Pink Fairy wrote: »

I know some people are quite against Ireland using project players and the 3 year qualifying rule in Ireland,
But is not the success of Japan built on this very rule, and shows how necessary it is?

Well it's fast tracked Japan to the world top 15 sure enough, maybe top 10 after today. However without proper youth structure and development in place all you are really doing is creating an international merc team (Toulon 2.0) and not improving the sport locally.

Now I know nothing at all about Japanese rugby so they may well be developing the sport brilliantly, but just importing players to have a strong national team isn't a solution at all.

Is it capped how many residency qualified players you can have?

.ak

Japan have no more "non-native" players than France or England afaik.

Infact, a lot of those players have more than just a granny connection or have significant ties to Japan. I don't think it's like an Irish soccer team sort of situation anyway.

CIARAN_BOYLE

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Well it's fast tracked Japan to the world top 15 sure enough, maybe top 10 after today. However without proper youth structure and development in place all you are really doing is creating an international merc team (Toulon 2.0) and not improving the sport locally.

Now I know nothing at all about Japanese rugby so they may well be developing the sport brilliantly, but just importing players to have a strong national team isn't a solution at all.

Is it capped how many residency qualified players you can have?

Its not like Japan are totally reliant on non Japanese players. 23 of the 31 man squad are Japanese born.

Anyway in the longer term Japan have a professional league (with greater and greater requirements for Japanese qualified players) and a Japanese team will join Super Rugby soon enough too.

CIARAN_BOYLE

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Its not like Japan are totally reliant on non Japanese players. 23 of the 31 man squad are Japanese born.

Anyway in the longer term Japan have a professional league (with greater and greater requirements for Japanese qualified players) and a Japanese team will join Super Rugby soon enough too.

Yeah I'm not being critical at all, I don't know the numbers or breakdown of foreign qualified players. I was only stating that there is no point in having a good national team built around foreign trained players and no youth system.

As was said, look at Ireland in the 80's and 90's and the state we are in now. Short term and fruitless to the development of the national game.

MJI

5/1 is worth a punt on Japan. Scotland have lost their last 5 competitive internationals

Noopti

Should be a very interesting game, especially with Eddie Jones coming out and saying they are fitter than Scotland and that if they are in the game by half time they WILL win. Nice bit of spice!

I do think the short turnaround time will effect Japan, especially as they just came off a game against the Boks. Physically they will not be at the level they would want to be for this game I feel.

However, can that be balanced out by the sheer high they are on right now. They will so want to win this, and in turn come out of the group.

rrpc

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah I'm not being critical at all, I don't know the numbers or breakdown of foreign qualified players. I was only stating that there is no point in having a good national team built around foreign trained players and no youth system.

As was said, look at Ireland in the 80's and 90's and the state we are in now. Short term and fruitless to the development of the national game.

I don't think any NGB of rugby would be stupid enough to do that. There are so many negatives that it would be tantamount to suicide.

1. You become completely dependant on imports and any change in the world market could kill the national team.
2. You would lose national support and with it any hope of developing home players and turn away sponsors.
3. From the above two points, you would be financially cutting your own throat.

On the other hand, having a few imports can be a benefit because of the knowledge they bring and the boost to the development curve. I think Japan is currently hitting that curve at the optimum point right now.

So there's a balance. You can also use imports as a short term solution to a medium term problem such as lack of depth at certain positions. Ireland's tight-head and hooker shortages of the past were stop-gapped with imports.

rrpc

rrpc wrote: »

I don't think any NGB of rugby would be stupid enough to do that. There are so many negatives that it would be tantamount to suicide.

1. You become completely dependant on imports and any change in the world market could kill the national team.
2. You would lose national support and with it any hope of developing home players and turn away sponsors.
3. From the above two points, you would be financially cutting your own throat.

On the other hand, having a few imports can be a benefit because of the knowledge they bring and the boost to the development curve. I think Japan is currently hitting that curve at the optimum point right now.

So there's a balance. You can also use imports as a short term solution to a medium term problem such as lack of depth at certain positions. Ireland's tight-head and hooker shortages of the past were stop-gapped with imports.

Agree with everything above, but other sports have done this in fairness.

thomond2006

Pink Fairy wrote: »

I know some people are quite against Ireland using project players and the 3 year qualifying rule in Ireland,
But is not the success of Japan built on this very rule, and shows how necessary it is?

It's not necessary at all. We produce enough players ourselves and the IRFU don't need to buy them.

Akrasia

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

Is there anywhere I'll be able to find this on the radio? I'll be stuck in my van tomorrow.

It's also available on the RWC 2015 app. All the matches have live streaming commentary (no live visuals unfortunately)

aimee1

bunnyarmstrong wrote: »

I missed the match on the weekend as well, caught only fleeting glimpses of it because my stupid brother had to get married and stuff.

Very lame excuse

sydthebeat

MJI wrote: »

5/1 is worth a punt on Japan. Scotland have lost their last 5 competitive internationals

no they havent, they beat italy 48 - 7 at home and 12 - 16 away in august

CIARAN_BOYLE

sydthebeat wrote: »

no they havent, they beat italy 48 - 7 at home and 12 - 16 away in august

Some people believe that those matches as 'warm ups' are not a competitive international but rather a friendly

efb

Come on the Cherry Blossoms!

ken76

Scotland will win this by 15 pts + hope im wrong

sydthebeat

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Some people believe that those matches as 'warm ups' are not a competitive international but rather a friendly

well that wouldnt be a correct belief :P

but even taking that aside...
they only lost the first 4 games in the 6 nations by a aggregate of 25 points.

5/1 might appear an attractive odd to some people but its about 3 points too low for me to be value.

Pink Fairy

thomond2006 wrote: »

It's not necessary at all. We produce enough players ourselves and the IRFU don't need to buy them.

IRFU aren't buying players, we offer contracts, these can be accepted or turned down

thomond2006

Pink Fairy wrote: »

IRFU aren't buying players, we offer contracts, these can be accepted or turned down

We are offering contracts to players to play international rugby then. Why else have a project player slot in the NIE quota?

rrpc

thomond2006 wrote: »

We are offering contracts to players to play international rugby then. Why else have a project player slot in the NIE quota?

Going back to your original point, we've used those slots to cover medium term shortages. Right now, we probably don't need any but there have been problems in the past at tight head, hooker and centre.

I wouldn't get rid of the system just because we don't need it right now though, you never know when another issue will arise.

We still seem to be a little tight at lock and possibly also at scrum half. There are players coming through but they're not proven at international level yet.

It's definitely gone from the brink of disaster to break glass in case of emergency though.

Pink Fairy

thomond2006 wrote: »

We are offering contracts to players to play international rugby then. Why else have a project player slot in the NIE quota?

We offer contracts to players who will benefit their club sides and maybe after 3 years if they are good enough they will be considered for selection.
That's different to the Japanese who are to my mind actively recruiting players wouldn't you think

thomond2006

Pink Fairy wrote: »

We offer contracts to players who will benefit their club sides and maybe after 3 years if they are good enough they will be considered for selection.
That's different to the Japanese who are to my mind actively recruiting players wouldn't you think

It's similar. I believe in the Top League you are allowed 5 foreign players in your matchday squad. So once a player becomes Japan eligible I assume he moves outside the quota. It's the exact same here: CJ Stander is now Irish eligible and isn't a project/NIE.

We offer contracts to players to benefit the province but why is there a 'project player' provision? Because ultimately the IRFU want to recruit a handful of foreign players for Ireland.

Anyway I'll leave it there as I'm only repeating what I've said before.

its_phil

Pink Fairy wrote: »

We offer contracts to players who will benefit their club sides and maybe after 3 years if they are good enough they will be considered for selection.
That's different to the Japanese who are to my mind actively recruiting players wouldn't you think

They're designated project players. There is no maybe about why they are signed

irishbucsfan

Pink Fairy wrote: »

We offer contracts to players who will benefit their club sides and maybe after 3 years if they are good enough they will be considered for selection.
That's different to the Japanese who are to my mind actively recruiting players wouldn't you think

Ireland are actively recruiting players. It's the whole point of the "project player" rule. You may not like it, but it's certainly true.

Stheno

Shane Byrne and Tommy Martin are the panel today it seems on TV3

High scoring game of free flowing rugby with Scotland narrowly losing and needing to play all these guys again at the Weekend please.

Yours sincerely,
My Fantasy Rugby team.

captbarnacles

Shane byrne was very interesting there. Best bit of analysis on tv3 yet.

More please!

.ak

Now to get some sneaky 3player action on in work on the phone... Pretty sure as it's Japan they can't give out to me.

Yeah_Right

I've known a few guys who played in Japan. If they had stayed, they would have made the national team. There is very good money in the Japanese clubs and the season is short. My mates enjoyed their time (and their pay checks) but not enough to make a permanent move.

They said some guys just fall in love with the place, the people and the culture and decide to stay. It's massive commitment for westerners to live in Japan. Much more so than a kiwi, saffer or aussie moving to Ireland or the UK. Or vice versa. All the foreign born players in the Japanese team have had to learn Japanese for example. Much tougher than learning French (or Nordie).

Stheno

captbarnacles wrote: »

Shane byrne was very interesting there. Best bit of analysis on tv3 yet.

More please!

Yes very enjoyable listening to him, comes across really well

captbarnacles

He's 1 man panel. Better than their 3 man panel.

.ak

.ak wrote: »

Now to get some sneaky 3player action on in work on the phone... Pretty sure as it's Japan they can't give out to me.

Decided in here to defer lunch for whoever wants until 2.30 so first half in the pub with a bit of nosh.

aaaaaand BAGPIPES

bilston

The Japanese anthem is a bit terrifying!

Yeah_Right

Anyone see Laidlaw give Gilchrist (I think) a kiss on the shoulder at the end of their anthem?!? He looked down at him with a WTF look.

bajer101

awec wrote: »

Can't get any poxy online player to work for this. :mad:

ITV player with Hola extension on chrome

Nib

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Anyone see Laidlaw give Gilchrist (I think) a kiss on the shoulder at the end of their anthem?!? He looked down at him with a WTF look.

He was wiping his nose on him.