Intensity rises hundreds of mi

England crank up their preparations after escaping Tokyo, writes Gavin Mairs in Miyazaki Jones has relished a return to the place where he plotted Japan’s win over South Africa in 2015

The morning after the night of Japan’s stunning victory over Scotland, England’s logistics team were quietly going about their work as they prepared to depart for Oita, again packing up the lorry-load of equipment that follows Eddie Jones’s squad on their travels around Japan.

Players and management brought their bags down to be loaded at 8.30am at the Sheraton hotel in Miyazaki, a colossal building that is visible for miles along the Nichinan Kaigan coastline and exudes corporate luxury similar to England’s training base at Pennyhill Park in Bagshot.

Within an hour, there was glorious sunshine, with the temperature peaking at 25C, far removed from the overbearing heat and humidity of England’s training camp here last month.

The sight of hundreds of surfers bobbing around only added to the summertime feeling, as did the holiday-makers enjoying the local leisure facilities on a national holiday yesterday, dedicated to health and sports.

It has been a similar theme since England escaped Tokyo to avoid Tyhoon Hagibis and following the cancellation of their final pool match against France.

And while the England players endured their toughest training session yet in Japan on Saturday, with a series of game scenarios escalating to full-on and fully committed contact, it is hard not to feel the squad have been in splendid isolation, hundreds of miles, literally and metaphorically, from the World Cup epicentre and the excitement created by Japan’s success. One elderly Japan supporter said he had visited the