TOKYO —
Japan rugby union head coach Jamie Joseph hailed
his team’s “good start” to their preparations for next year’s World Cup after
they thrashed Uruguay 43–7 on Saturday.
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Japan reached the
World Cup quarter-finals for the first time when they hosted the tournament in
2019 and Joseph is looking for a repeat performance at next year’s showpiece
event in France.
The New Zealander
was taking charge of his team for the first time this year. He said it was an
“exciting time”, as Japan prepares to face England, Argentina, Samoa, and a
qualifier from the
Americas at the World Cup.
“This game was a
starting point for us,” he said.
“We’re trying to
create a team in a very short period of time. When I look at that as the
circumstance under which we played the match, I thought we had a very good
start today.”
Japan beat Uruguay
34–15 last week in Tokyo but Joseph did not coach the team for that match,
instead of placing coach Takanobu Horikawa in charge of a line-up largely made
up of development players.
Joseph was back at
the helm as the countries met again in the southern Japanese city of
Kitakyushu, and Japan took control through first-half tries from Captain
Atsushi Sakate and center Dylan Riley.
Further scores from
Sakate, Gerhard van der Heever, and Yusuke Kajimura saw Japan increase their
lead after the break, but Uruguay gave the home side problems late in the game
and scored through Manuel Ardao.
“The last 15, 20
minutes got a little bit sloppy,” said Joseph, whose team will face Six Nations
champions France twice at home over the coming weeks.
“Those are the
sorts of things we can’t afford to do when we play Tier One sides,” he added.
Uruguay has been
handed a tough World Cup assignment against hosts France, New Zealand, Italy,
and an African qualifier.
Head coach Esteban
Meneses said his team had “learned a lot” from their two games against Japan.
“When you play
against a team like Japan, just one mistake can lead to a try,” he said.
“We’ve seen how important the technical and physical side of
the game is from these matches and we’ll be putting in the work to try to do
well at the World Cup.”
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