The temperatures throughout the World Cup are expected to be high and humidity will be high. Look for Japan to move the ball and force the Russians to burn their energy early.
Match details: Friday September 20, 10.45pm, Tokyo Stadium, Tokyo
Referee: Nigel Owens
Squads
Japan: William Tupou, Kotaro Matsushima, Timothy Lafaele, Ryoto Nakamura, Lomano Lava Lemeki, Yu Tamura, Yutaka Nagare; Kazuki Himeno, Pieter Labuschagne, Michael Leitch (c), James Moore, Wimpie van der Walt, Asaeli Ai Valu, Shota Horie, Keita Inagaki.
Reserves: Atsushi Sakate, Isileli Nakajima, Jiwon Koo, Luke Thompson, Hendrik Tui, Fumiaki Tanaka, Rikiya Matsuda, Ryohei Yamanaka.
Russia: Vasily Artemyev (c), German Davydov, Vladimir Ostroushko, Dmitry Gerasimov, Kirill Golosnitskiy, Yury Kushnarev, Vasily Dorofeev, Nikita Vavilin, Tagir Gadzhiev, Vitaly Zhivatov, Bogdan Fedotko, Andrey Ostrikov, Kirill Gotovtsev, Stanislav Selskii, Valery Morozov.
Reserves: Evgeny Matveev, Andrei Polivalov, Azamat Bitiev, Andrey Garbuzov, Anton Sychev, Dmitry Perov, Ramil Gaisin, Vladislav Sozonov.
How to watch/stream
The Herald will have live updates of the match from 10.30pm, and will be live blogging the opening ceremony from 9pm. Spark Sport coverage starts at 9.20pm. Kickoff is at 10.45pm.
Head-to-head
Japan and Russia have met six times prior to the World Cup opener, with Japan winning five to Russia's one. Russia's lone victory over the Brave Blossoms came in 2003.
Last time: Japan were victorious 32-27 over Russia in Gloucester on November 24, 2018.
Group standings
