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Japan captain Leitch says his side will not bow down at Twickenham

Posted on March 6, 2019

The Japan captain, Michael Leitch, insists his side are targeting nothing less than victory against England on Saturday, claiming Eddie Jones would not have it any other way.

England’s Eddie Jones to boycott ‘waste of time’ referees’ meetings


Leitch, who was Jones’s captain for the stunning win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, has revealed his former coach’s greatest legacy with Japan was to change the mindset away from accepting defeat too easily.

They remain rank outsiders for Saturday’s game and the disparity between the two sides was laid bare on Monday when it emerged Japan’s players receive a daily allowance of £13.64 a day, while the England squad each earn £25,000 per match.

Jones has pledged to field a full-strength side for Japan’s first trip to Twickenham and urged them to “smash” the Brave Blossoms but Leitch refused to bite on the warning that they should “go to the temple and pray”, adding they would not be doing their former coach justice if they roll over.

“The great thing that Eddie did in Japanese rugby was he changed the mindset,” he said. “The national team always accepted losing and he changed that and set us on the right track. We can’t accept losing, we can’t accept saying we did our best but we lost. We are not going to go there and bow down, we are going to go out there and win it.

“I try not to make it extra special but it will be because a lot of the players respect him [Eddie] as a coach and he wouldn’t want to see a Japanese team that goes down there and bows down to a bigger England pack without really giving it everything.

“I wasn’t surprised at all [by Eddie’s comments]. Every team that plays Japan will go out and bash us. We expect that from every international team. From a tier-one northern hemisphere team we expect them to bully us in the set piece, bully us around the breakdown, it is nothing new.”

Expenses spared: Japan’s rugby union players are being paid just £13 per day


Jones, meanwhile, defended his barbs and acknowledged the improvements Japan have made since he left after the 2015 World Cup. “I was having a bit of fun. You can’t have fun these days, can you? How boring is it? You say anything that’s a little bit interesting and it’s deemed as being politically incorrect. We want to smash Japan and it’s important our players have that mindset because it’s one of those tricky games, a game you should win, you’re expected to and if you go in with anything but an aggressive, physical mindset you get caught out.

“I’m so pleased that Japan is now a serious member of the rugby community because they weren’t before. That’s why they’ve got this fixture. When I went there they completely had a losing mindset. They were happy to play against England and get beaten 70-20 because as long as they tried hard everyone was happy.

“Now those young guys, because they’ve seen Japan win, they think they can win. The young guys play Super Rugby so are playing against the best players in the world on a weekly basis, so they think they can win. That makes them more dangerous.”

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