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Japanese Captain Out

Japan head coach Jamie Joseph has had to make a change to his match-day 23 to face Chile in Toulouse on Sunday, with captain Kazuki Himeno ruled out. Jack Cornelsen moves from the second row to number eight and second-row Amanaki Saumaki comes into the team. Scrum-half Yutaka Nagare will take over as captain, while flanker Michael Leitch is set to play in his fourth World Cup.

1 Keita Inagaki
2 Atsushi Sakate
3 Jiwon Gu
4 Amanaki Saumaki
5 Amato Fakatava
6 Michael Leitch
7 Kanji Shimokawa
8 Jack Cornelsen
9 Yutaka Nagare (c)
10 Rikiya Matsuda
11 Jone Naikabula
12 Ryoto Nakamura
13 Dylan Riley
14 Kotaro Matsushima
15 Semisi Masirewa

Replacements:

16 Shota Horie
17 Craig Millar
18 Asaeli Ai Valu
19 Warner Dearns
20 Shota Fukui
21 Naoto Saito
22 Tomoki Osada
23 Lomano Lemeki

Head coach Jamie Joseph has named 12 survivors from Rugby World Cup 2019 in his match-day team, including nine in the starting XV.

Keita Inagaki will play his 50th game, becoming the 18th Japanese player to reach this milestone but only the third prop after Kensuke Hatakeyama (78) and Hiroshi Yamashita (51).

Michael Leitch will make his fourth Rugby World Cup appearance, joining Luke Thompson and Yukio Motoki as the only Japanese players to reach this milestone. In his 81st test, he will equal Hirotoki Onozawa as their second-most capped player all-time. Only Hitoshi Ono has played more tests for Japan with 98.

Kotaro Matsushima set a new Japanese tournament try-scoring record at RWC 2019 with five. Prior to this no player had scored more than three tries for the Brave Blossoms at a single event.

Jone Naikabula and Jack Cornelsen are the only two Japanese players to have played every minute of test rugby this season across four games.

Jack Cornelsen’s father Greg played 25 tests for Australia between 1974 and 1982, including one test against Japan in Brisbane in 1975.

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