Rugby: Kirwan's Japan aims to compete with All Blacks

Japan coach John Kirwan says his side should be ready to play the All Blacks in two years' time. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Japan's coach, former All Black John Kirwan, thinks Japan should be ready to play the All Blacks in two years' time and wants his team to be in the world's top eight teams by 2019.

Japan is hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and Kirwan said the aim was for Japan to take the cup that year.

He was at the Tokyo test on Saturday when the All Blacks beat the Wallabies 32-19.

Kirwan said rugby was not as connected with the public as soccer, but the presence of the All Blacks in Tokyo would be a real boost to his team.

Kirwan has coached Japan for three years now and taken the team from 18th to 14th in that time. And if Japan beat visiting Canada this month, they will be promoted to 13th.

Canada is coached by Kirwan's former All Black room-mate, Kieran Crowley.

"We have set a strategic plan up here - a 10-year, long-term, player-development plan, and I think realistically we can make the top eight," Kirwan told the Herald in Tokyo. He believed the team would be ready to play the All Blacks in two years.

The last time they played, Japan were massacred 145-17 in a pool game at the 1995 South Africa Rugby World Cup - the biggest score in test rugby - and some believe that mismatch set Japan's rugby back years.

Kirwan said he was trying to create a Japanese style of rugby "[to] change the game to suit us, not play like anyone else".

"So what is being Japanese? We want to have the greatest skills in the world. We have got very fast feet, very agile. So ... we can create a type of rugby that will put the opposition under pressure - very fast moving, very quick rucks, very quick lineouts, fastest scrum in the world - really try and speed up the game."

To do that they had to be superbly fit and have the skills to go with it "because as you speed things up, the mind struggles to cope".

Kirwan said Japan had a population of 120 million, and the Japanese Rugby Union was starting to identify Japanese players from ages 8 to 13 who could be available in 2019.

His present team were young. After 15 changes last year, they had an average age of 23.

"So we are getting better. And they are very easy boys to coach."