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By Oliver Trenchard
Japanese rugby writer
This is no longer a wonder.
Read many Japanese newspapers as the Brave Blossoms reserved a place at the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals for the first time with victory against Scotland.
The Japanese people and press are waking up to the truth that their rugby team.
However, this did not occur.
Agility and the devastating acceleration of Kenki Fukuoka and celebrity wingers Kotaro Matsushima, coupled together with all the epic leadership of back-rower Michael Leitch along with also captain, deserve all plaudits that come their way, but there is more to the Brave Blossoms compared to their own poster boys.
Japan possess capability from 1 to 15 – and about the replacements bench.
They have to rival that of opposition backs, capable of several bizarre offloads as shown by hooker Shota Horie contrary to Scotland.
The Brave Blossoms know their strengths are eager to increase ball-in-play time, moving the ball away from the region of contact and lie with their fitness.
The hosts confront winners South Africa from the last eight on Sunday. BBC Sport looks at the factors behind the rise of Japan.
Launching the Sunwolves a couple of months after the 2015 championship has brought benefits.
The Japanese players are testing themselves a luxury they would not have with League rugby, against caliber southern hemisphere opposition only.
Theyve played a pivotal role in Japans World Cup preparations Though the Sunwolves will take part in Super Rugby from 2021.
An additional alignment involving the group and the Sunwolves across the past two seasons has witnessed Tony Brown and head trainer Jamie Joseph taking the reins of teams, resulting in the Super Rugby side becoming an extension of the Brave Blossoms.
Much of handling Japan have produced at the World Cup and the flair was in Super Rugby.
Joseph and Brown even had the luxury last season of choosing which players featured for the Sunwolves, pulling out the vast majority of Japans World Cup squad for a series of intensive coaching camps and enabling the Brave Blossoms to perfect those set-piece patterns and encircle moves, and make them the fittest team in the championship.
Where rugby has benefitted from overseas coaches its not that the Sunwolves.
Robbie Deans, the very successful Super Rugby coach by number of titles, key into the development of front-row forwards Horie and wing Fukuoka and Keita Inagaki and has been at the helm of Panasonic Wild Knights in the Top League.
Meanwhile, among the players of the championship thus far, Kazuki Himeno, has 2007 World Cup-winning coach Jake White to thank you for his progression.
White was appointed head coach Toyota Verblitz in 2017, whom Himeno joined in April that year straight from college.
Just one month after, he was appointed ruler White, stating that it was ahuge chance for him to develop.
The back-row forward struggled to manage the captaincy but started staying late at night in cafes, reading books and developing a team.
He had been rewarded with his first Brave Blossoms call-up, less than two weeks after making his debut Verblitz in the Top League.
He has continued at the breakdown proving him on his trajectory with his ram-battering conveys and stubborn work.
While Brown and Joseph will get the headlines for the royal assaulting play of Japan, its been the scrum in which the Brave Blossoms have improved beneath their tenure.
Shin Hasegawa is the man in charge of this scrum that is Japanese. Cutting on a menacing figure in a suit and tie on the conclusion of the bench on Sunday of Japan, the squirt is not the sort of person you would wish to bump into down a secluded Tokyo alley.
Having played at the 1999 World Cup Joseph for Japan, Hasegawa realised that the Japan scrum was overpowered by opponents.
After turning them into a title contest using the very best scrum from the league and Immunology Best League team Yamaha Jubilo, Hasegawa was called upon by Joseph in 2016 to help the Brave Blossoms scrummaging.
Conscious that Japanese gamers will generally be of greater stature than their opponents, Hasegawa has contrasted his scrummaging approach with Japan into some punch, wherehitting quicker will lead to more impact thanhitting tougher.
His breakthrough came from two Tests against Ireland in June 2017.
Japan were overpowered at the scrum at the first Test. However, a shift in the angle of the hooker saw the week, the Brave Blossoms contend. It was then the Japan forwards realised his capacity.
South Africa lovers with painful memories of 2015 will be eager to remind Japan that lightning doesnt strike twice.
The Brave Blossoms have beaten Scotland and Ireland in Pool A and will certainly fancy their chances of maintaining another scalp that was tier-one on Sunday.
This Brighton miracles rematch comes 44 days after the teams met at a game, with all the Springboks cantering into a victory on that occasion.
This was far in the instance that while the margin of victory that day in Kumagaya would signal that a same-sex event.
Japan appreciated as much territory and won as several rucks, outstripping the resistance in every statistic from blank breaks.
The area was with the people.
With the thats come with topping Pool A, Japan will be eager to make amends for your defeat.
Their line speed was perfected over the duration of their four successes, with the managing skills of Timothy Lafaele overriding and centers Ryota Nakamura to Fukuoka and Matsushima being granted attacking opportunities.
Never has received this amount of exposure in Japan. The countrys robustly paper business has plastered Japans white and red all while television recordings are obliterated for Brave Blossoms games.
Sundays win from Scotland saw 53.7percent of the nation tune in, which makes it the most watched television programme of the year domestically.
Viewership has improved game-on-game to get Japan matches throughout the pool phase, together with the audience more than double that of the opening game of Sunday.
Rugby has captured the hearts of this nation.
The word heritage can be tarnished with an awareness of platitude when uttered around sporting events. This is uncharted territory for Japanese football, whose job it is to make sure that the sport is not being followed by these enthusiasts every four decades.
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