By Rich Freeman,
Former Japan stalwart Luke Thompson, a veteran of 71 test matches for his adopted country, believes the Brave Blossoms are capable of beating Argentina and reaching their second Rugby World Cup quarterfinals with "a bit of luck" on Sunday.
The 42-year-old former lock, who played at four World Cups, was in Monaco and Nice recently for a few days in his role as a tour guide for Japan fans. Having returned to his deer farm in New Zealand, he responded by email to some questions posed by Kyodo News.
"I have me some hope that with the bounce of the ball and a bit of luck, the Japan boys can cause an upset," he wrote.
While Japan lost its second-round clash with England at Stade de Nice, Thompson saw enough to make him think a spot in the quarterfinals was not beyond Jamie Joseph's team.
"I felt like they were a team lacking confidence, but thought they did better than expected against England," he said.
"That gave me hope they could beat Samoa and put themselves in a position to go to the quarterfinals. But they still need to keep improving and play consistently and remove the small but key errors. Nothing new or special, but it has to be done to win."
The Brave Blossoms did, of course, go on to beat Samoa, and Thompson believes Argentina are a similar opponent to the Pacific islanders.
"Japan will need to combat their physicality and strengths and play a high-paced, technically sound, tactically smart, really skillful game," he said.
Thompson, who came out of international retirement to help Japan reach the quarterfinals on home soil in 2019, disputed the notion that Joseph's team had regressed since then. But he does admit they have not progressed as much as other teams.
"You have to progress as a matter of natural selection, basically. Players are always getting bigger, stronger and fitter, and that comes from competition," he explained.
"But other things impact that progress too -- talent, experience, coaching. I do think that expectations have changed for the Japan team, so the measures of progress are a lot different now. Small changes or results read a lot differently than say 10 years ago."
Thompson's reintroduction to the national team prior to the 2019 tournament saw him play for the Sunwolves, a since-disbanded Japan-based Super Rugby side.
"It was a great place to blood new players. It gave them week in, week out, tough rugby, different styles of rugby and they had to do it on the road a lot," he said.
But Thompson said Japan's poor run of form between the previous and current tournaments cannot be attributed entirely to the axing of the Sunwolves in early 2020.
"Japan's struggles are relative. They are now playing a lot more top teams and tougher games, so they're not going to have the same winning percentage. But (losing the Sunwolves) may have dented confidence a touch."
Having looked at the past and the present, Thompson gave his thoughts on who would take over as national head coach from Joseph, who has announced he will return to New Zealand after the World Cup.
"I think there are some pretty good candidates," he said. "Robbie Deans or Frans Ludeke are both good options. It's great that it's now a job that's thought of as being desirable."
According to multiple sources with inside information, however, Deans has ruled out taking the job.
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Rugby: Reduction in errors helping Japan's cause at World Cup
