Jones gets ‘winning feel’ at Japan base

England are to base themselves at Miyazaki on Japan’s southerly island of Kyushu as they prepare for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Eddie Jones believes having the right facility and backdrop is essential to delivering high-end performance, as the head coach showed four years ago when the pre-2015 camp in Brighton helped Japan to pull off the greatest upset in World Cup history by beating South Africa in the opening game.

“Your first training base is important as it sets the tone,” said Jones, who did a recce with his support staff of various options last month, visiting Miyazaki, Tokyo, Yokohama and Kobe.

“Miyazaki has a winning feel about it. That comes from being able to prepare well and from being able to train well, eat well and recover well.

“We’re looking to use Miyazaki for maybe the first five or six days when we arrive in Japan. There’s a very good hotel, the training ground is within walking distance, we can set up a gym and there’s enough around for the players to do in the small time they have off. Brighton was great for us [with Japan]. It just made you feel good.”

Jones will not know until Nov 2 where England’s pool matches are. The draw for the pools was made in May and placed England in a tough group alongside France, Argentina, USA and Tonga. England were based at Twickenham for almost the entire duration of the 2015 World Cup, but all teams will be expected to move around Japan for their pool games. Jones is still investigating the possibility of playing a warm-up game in Japan.

There are three World Cup venues on Kyushu but, such are the hitech transport systems in Japan, travel will be straightforward. Jones intends to take England to Japan well ahead of the tournament, probably Sept 3-6, so as to acclimatise them to the sultry conditions they will encounter when the competition begins on Sept 20, 2019.

“We’ll definitely have to be ready to play different styles because it can be very hot and humid, or it can be just absolutely raining cats and dogs,” said Jones. “We have to be prepared for the worst-case scenarios. This is going to be different. The other countries that have held World Cups haven’t had these wild extremes of weather. There is a possibility of playing a warm-up game shortly after we arrive and we are looking to play similar teams to the ones we face in the pool stage.”

There will also be different cultural attitudes for England to take on board. “For the staff in particular [on the recce], it was a case of understanding Japanese culture,” he added. “There are certain customs in Japan which are hard to understand for an Anglo-saxon. You have a conversation and people say yes, but the yes doesn’t necessarily mean yes – in fact many times it means no. You need to be able to pick up that vibe quickly, because it can lead to frustration and that frustration can cause a breakdown in a relationship. You lose trust in that person and once you lose trust, it’s hard to get things done.”

There is little doubt that Jones’s mind is firmly set on 2019. “The countdown starts here,” he said. “Everything now is more specifically geared – for the staff, not so much the players – towards the World Cup, so our plan, our strategy, the way we think is geared towards winning the World Cup.”