Eddie Jones' plan to turn Warner Dearns into the best lock in the world

Warner Dearns, 23, will become the Brave Blossoms’ youngest-ever captain when he leads the team out against Canada in Sendai this Saturday.

With longstanding leader Michael Leitch unavailable due to personal reasons, New Zealand-born Dearns and hooker Mamoru Harada, who have 35 caps between them, have been chosen to share the captaincy during the Asahi Super Dry Pacific Nations Cup.

However, Harada has not been passed fit for Japan’s opening fixture, so Dearns, who wins his 24th cap, will have the honour all to himself.

With nearly a dozen players unavailable, Japan will field a callow team in their opening match. Of the 23 players selected, eight have fewer than 10 caps, so it’ll be a real test of Dearns’ leadership credentials.

Charlie Lawrence makes his debut at inside centre, while Kenji Sato, Kenta Kobayashi and Yuya Hirose are in line for their first caps after being named on the bench.

Head-to-Head

Last 3 Meetings

Wins

3

Draws

0

Wins

0

Average Points scored

46

22

First try wins

67%

Home team wins

33%

Head coach Eddie Jones hopes that the responsibility bestowed on Dearns will bring the best out of him and help turn him into the best lock in the world.

Commenting on his selection of Dearns and Harada as co-captains, Jones said: “A strong recommendation came from Michael Leitch, which I took pretty seriously. Michael is the most influential person in Japanese rugby and has been since before 2015. He was quite adamant that these two boys both have the potential to do it well.

“Warner is a young guy and he’s still trying to find the best of himself and sometimes responsibility helps bring that out. We want him to be the best lock in the world and believe he’s capable of doing that. The players like playing with him, they respect him a lot and he’s got a good relationship with Harada.

“They’ve got different strengths. Warner’s strengths are more on the field, whereas Harada’s strength is in leadership, particularly off the field in terms of the culture and behaviour of the team, so together they’re a really good combination.”

After the opening match against Canada, Japan will then travel to California for their second Pool B fixture against the USA at Heart Health Park in Sacramento on Saturday, September 6.

Jones added: “Last year we were runners-up, and this year our target is to go one better.

“We’ve picked a strong squad, considering we have 11 players unavailable through injury or personal circumstances. We feel confident we have a squad that’s going to make Japan proud.”

JAPAN team vs Canada, Saturday, August 30

1 Sena Kimura, 2 Hayate Era, 3 Shuhei Takeuchi; 4 Waisake Raratubua, 5 Warner Dearns (capt.), 6 Ben Gunter, 7 Kanji Shimokawa, 8 Amato Fakatava; 9 Shinobu Fujiwara, 10 Seungsin Lee; 11 Malo Tuitama, 12 Charlie Lawrence, 13 Dylan Riley, 14 Kippei Ishida; 15 Sam Greene

Replacements: 16 Kenji Sato, 17 Kenta Kobayashi, 18 Keijiro Tamefusa, 19 Tiennan Costley, 20 Faulua Makisi, 21 Kenta Fukuda, 22 Yuya Hirose, 23 Tomoki Osada