Masahiro Kunda returns with Japan's rising stars

A JAPANESE hooker who made his World Cup debut in Edinburgh is back in the Scottish capital this week bidding to use games against Scottish sides as an early platform for a new era of World Cup success.

Coach Masahiro Kunda earned 48 caps for Japan between 1990 and 1999, with his sixth, and fifth start, coming at Murrayfield in the opening Rugby World Cup match of Pool Two, which resulted in a 47-9 win for the home side back in 1991.

Kunda went on to captain Japan through the 1995 World Cup and after success as Japan's Under-20 coach and with his club, Toshiba, has returned to Scotland as coach of the Japan A squad. The senior team secured qualification for the 2011 World Cup at the weekend with a heavy defeat of Hong Kong, under former All Black and Italy coach John Kirwan.

Kunda's task is to cast the net wide and provide opportunities for up-and-coming players and fringe internationalists to press their claims for inclusion in next year's tournament, and that begins with tonight's match against Scottish Hydro Premier One champions Currie at Malleny Park and continues next Tuesday at Murrayfield with a game against a Scotland XV.

Through a translator, Kunda told The Scotsman: "It brings back a lot of good memories for me to come back to Scotland. I have not been back here since that World Cup match, which was my first experience of the World Cup.

"Japan has just qualified for the World Cup, so we do not have any of that squad here, but this is the A squad and there are some players with full caps, some with experience from the last World Cup, and all of the players are with the leading clubs in Japan.

"This is a good opportunity for all of the squad to push themselves into contention for World Cup places next year, but particularly for the younger players this is where we start building for the 2015 World Cup in England and the 2019 back in our home country, which will be very special."

Japan pushed for the right to host the 2011 World Cup, having proven to the world that the country was eminently capable of hosting a major sporting event with its successful staging of the Fifa World Cup in 2002 with South Korea. It narrowly lost the vote to New Zealand, but received a pledge from major unions that it would be considered seriously next time around and it is widely believed that the IRB insisted on taking host bids for both the 2015 and 2019 tournaments together in order that Japan would win one vote, falling in line with regular pronouncements from the IRB that it wished to move rugby into a more global sport.

It duly did so and Japan won the right to stage the tournament in 2019 and Kunda, 43, believes Japanese rugby will show significant improvement in the years leading up to that event.

"It has to," he said. "Rugby cannot be ignored now. There is no other option but to improve the sport so that the team can play well in front of our own people when the World Cup comes.

"Japanese people do not like to see their sports teams not do well in front of their own supporters. They simply cannot. Also, the decision by the Olympic Games movement to allow rugby sevens into the Games from 2016 has impacted on Japan's support for rugby.

"The Japanese Olympic committee have decided to put more money and effort into developing rugby. So, we now have great incentives for rugby to be improved, and for players to aim for. There are a lot of players with us in Scotland who will see the Olympics and the World Cup as incentives so they will want to do well."

The Japanese squad head off to Spain after the Scottish leg of their tour for a match with a Spain President's XV on 5 June before returning to Japan. They are captained by Masakazu Irie, who, at 28, is the oldest member of what is a young squad. The fly-half-cum-centre from Fukuoka stands just 5ft 8in tall and has one cap to his name.

Vying with him for the No10 jersey is New Zealander Nathan Anderson, who is shorter, at 5ft 7in, than his Japanese rival. The team also has Tongan Sioeli Iongi and Kiwi Timothy Bond as rival No8s, and two further Tongans Aisea Mattaali Havea (centre) and Paea Mifi Poseti (wing) bring some Pacific Islands power to the three-quarter line.

Kunda added: "We are taking both games very seriously. We know Currie are the Scottish club champions so we expect them to be very good, and even if Scotland do not have their strongest team next week they are international players and so we expect a very strong team at Murrayfield. It is good to be back here with lots of memories and hopefully we can do well for Japanese rugby."