Host nation Japan and rank outsiders Russia get the 2019 edition of the Rugby World Cup underway in Tokyo on Friday and if the pre-match betting proves to be accurate Japan will win this at a canter.
Japan v Russia, Friday 20th September, Tokyo, KO 12:45 (South African time)
Weather Forecast – Ajinomoto Stadium, Tokyo
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant Referees: Nic Berry (Australia), Matthew Carley (England)
TMO: Ben Skeen (New Zealand)
Japan
Japan have been ever present in RWC finals but they have never been beyond the pool stage. They threatened to end that record in 2015, a campaign which started with a 34-32 upset win against the Springboks and although they went on to beat Samoa and USA a defeat to Scotland in their second outing proved costly. Japan finished third in their pool in 2015, 2 log points behind the Scots and 4 shy of the Springboks.
Japan's most recent warm up match also came against the Boks and they finished soundly beaten (41-7). Other preparations include the Pacific Nations Cup which Japan won with a 100% record comprising of victories over Fiji (34-21), Tonga (41-7) and USA (34-24). Japan are currently tenth in the world rankings.
With Ireland and Scotland the big favourites to top Pool A you can get around 16/1 for Japan to top this pool and 11/4 for them to qualify for the quarter finals.
Russia
Russia came through qualifying to book their ticket to the finals although they benefited from points deductions for Romania and Spain for a rules breach. A recent 85-15 hiding off Italy in a warm up suggests they will battle to make any sort of mark and they are ranked 20th in the world. Their only previous appearance in the finals came in New Zealand in 2011 when they lost all 4 of their matches, scoring 57 points in total and conceding 196 in a pool which included Ireland, Australia, Italy and USA.
You can almost name your own price for Russia to win the world cup and odds of 500/1 to qualify for the quarter finals are common place.
Line Ups
Japan: 15 William Tupou, 14 Kotaro Matsushima, 13 Timothy Lafaele, 12 Ryoto Nakamura, 11 Lomano Lava Lemeki, 10 Yu Tamura, 9 Yutaka Nagare, 8 Kazuki Himeno, 7 Pieter Labuschagne, 6 Michael Leitch (captain), 5 James Moore, 4 Wimpie van der Walt, 3 Asaeli Ai Valu, 2 Shota Horie, 1 Keita Inagaki
Substitutes: 16 Atsushi Sakate, 17 Isileli Nakajima, 18 Koo Ji-won, 19 Luke Thompson, 20 Hendrik Tui, 21 Fumiaki Tanaka, 22 Rikiya Matsuda, 23 Ryohei Yamanaka
Russia: 15 Vasily Artemyev (c), 14 German Davydov, 13 Vladimir Ostroushko, 12 Dmitry Gerasimov, 11 Kirill Golosnitskiy, 10 Yury Kushnarev, 9 Vasily Dorofeev, 8 Nikita Vavilin, 7 Tagir Gadzhiev, 6 Vitaly Zhivatov, 5 Bogdan Fedotko, 4 Andrey Ostrikov, 3 Kirill Gotovtsev, 2 Stanislav Selskii, 1 Valery Morozov
Replacements: 16 Evgeny Matveev, 17 Andrei Polivalov, 18 Azamat Bitiev, 19 Andrey Garbuzov, 20 Anton Sychev, 21 Dmitry Perov, 22 Ramil Gaisin, 23 Vladislav Sozonov
Head to Head
The teams have met 5 times with Japan winning 4 to Russia's 1.
The most recent meeting was a friendly staged in Gloucester in November 2018 which Japan won 32-27, scoring 4 tries to 2.
Russia's only win over Japan came in Tokyo (43-34) back in 2003
The biggest winning margin between the sides came in Tokyo in 2010 when Japan won 75-3.
Betting - Handicap
Japan -40.5 points at 9/10
Russia +40.5 points at 9/10
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Quotes are an average of what was on offer from a selection of bookmakers at the time of writing and are subject to change.
Betting Angle
There has already been plenty of early action on this one with Japan initialy opening -19.5 and many of the Goodforthegame Forum punters getting on months ago. The line has now doubled and unfortunatly I wasn't in a position to tie up funds at that point. I am not convinced there is value in the current handicap which looks about right but I do think Japan will win comfortably. I also expect them to start strong and the -17.5 Half Time handicap has some appeal.
Bet: 3 units Japan -17.5 Half Time Handicap at 0.87/1 at Sunbet
Sunbet were first out with total points lines and the under 65.5 has been snapped up and the line is now 62.5 points. The weather forecast doesn't look too bad and humidity levels are not forecast to be extreme so I will sit this one out for now although would have been an unders player at 65.5.
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