Japanese point finger at Cian Healy's scrummaging

There is a no-nonsense honesty to Japan's players at this World Cup and it comes as something of a culture shock to those of accustomed to the bland pre-match clichés that permeate your normal Six Nations or Champions Cup week.

On Monday it was Uwe Helu stating quite casually that Ireland will 'look down' at the hosts when they meet at the ECOPA Stadium in Shizuoka this weekend. And on Tuesday we have had Yusuke Kizu all but accusing Cian Healy of scrummaging illegally.

“Their loosehead prop sort of steps out, so they try to attack from the side. That's my impression of the scrum,” said the 23-year old who switched from back row to front row on enrolling at Tenri University.

Every scrum in the world is awash with forwards seeking to gain whatever advantage they can, and there isn't one that wouldn't bend the laws to do just that, but it's rare for a player to come out and say as much five days before facing that very opposition.

In European circles, anyway.

Kizu didn't feature in Japan's opener against Russia. Maybe that bit of distance had something to do with his willingness to share because he was no more guarded when asked to address how they would cope with Ireland's reliance on the physicality of their pack in open play.

“Ireland's forwards really attack close to the rucks so we need to have double collisions to stop their momentum and we need to execute our system for us to achieve that. It was a positive tight-five review from the Russia game in that our defence really came up hard and we were able to force them back.”

Scrum coach Shin Hagewa, who played for Japan 40 times between 1997 and 2003, is a declared fan of Ireland's scrum and praised the “winning mentality” of Joe Schmidt's side who claimed two wins over Japan in a two-test series here back in the summer of 2017.

“We need to nullify the strong loosehead (Healy) and tighthead (Tadhg Furlong) so that we don't let them scrum at one hundred per cent,” he explained. “I originally loved a lot of their scrums back in the day so we need to really think about how we counter them and co-ordinate that with the players.”