Japan national rugby head coach Eddie Jones on Wednesday described a future where well-supported young players aspire to compete with the world's best playing a unique speedy style.
Jones, who has returned to the job he left after the 2015 World Cup, believes Japan, once "a bit of a joke team," has moved forward and "created an excitement and style of play that created a new Japan," and now hopes to nudge the Brave Blossoms to the next level.
He said the task for him and the Japan Rugby Football Union is to encourage young players and support them within a high-performance environment, and then encode in them a fast unstructured style that plays to Japan's strengths.
Jones praised the quality of Japan Rugby League One but pointed out that only 53 percent of the playing time is going to Japanese players.
"The challenge is to create better Japanese players," said Jones, who said he's been to all the top clubs and universities and some high schools to impress on the coaches the need to work together.
Jones pointed to Major League Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani as an example of a Japanese who has challenged conceptions of what is possible in his sport.
"Firstly, we've got to give them encouragement, and that's one of my major jobs initially...because we need those young players in Japan to think they can be the next Ohtani of rugby, and at the moment they can't think like that, and we need them to think like that."
Jones said that while he can be a guide, it is up to the JRFU and coaches to create a high-performance system that empowers young players to challenge themselves and put them in the right environment for growth.
"Young kids have to learn that they can't just do what the coach tells them to do," he said. "They have got to work at what they need. They have to be more self-directed, take ownership of their own careers."
He cited League One's early entry system as a step to the high-performance environment he wants, in which outstanding university players train and play with some of the best in the world and are prepared for a future on the international stage.
For the national team, he believes Japanese players' ability to buy into a program can give the Brave Blossoms an advantage on the pitch.
"One of the strongest things about Japanese sport is that once you can get a concise purpose for a team, Japanese players can give you more than any other players in the world," he said. "Because they buy into that harmony, that concept of doing it together, being tough. And they are the toughest players in the world."
"There's no reason we can't jump into the top four. We need to develop a new style of play that is adventurous, that is attacking, of course it has organization and structure but we want to break the structure as quickly as we can and move the ball as quickly as we can."
And though Jones' focus was largely on player development and the next generation, talk turned to the importance of work ethic, leadership and 35-year-old former captain Michael Leitch.
"We had a camp four weeks ago, and we trained two days, and Michael Leitch led everything, 35 years of age, in the middle of his season. He doesn't need to do that. He doesn't need to impress, but that's what he does. And that's why he's still playing at the top level now."
"With that young talent we need to keep good senior leadership like Leitch...because talent needs role models."
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