Tokyo (AFP)

The task was not obvious ... Jamie Joseph succeeded Eddie Jones as head of the Brave Blossoms in 2015. Four years later, he led Japan to the quarter-finals of the World Cup. With even more work and rigor.

The player Jamie Joseph (20 caps with the All Blacks 1992-95, and 9 with Japan in 1999) draws the coach, 49 years.

It was a third line rough and thick (1.96 m, 115 kg of time of its splendor). He left memories everywhere. Notably in England, where he deliberately carved his crampons on the ankle of scrub halfback Rose Kieran Bracken in a test-match in 1993. Scandal ...

In the pre-professional era, citations and other Disciplinary Commissions did not exist and New Zealanders settled the case internally.

The coach? "He seems to be tough and hard, sometimes scary," James Moore told The Times in the second line, "but he's attentive, very attentive. He spends a lot of time with us. "

"He's a great coach, he's led the team so far, physically and mentally," said Moore.

- "We do not stop running" -

Joseph's mantra: work, high intensity workouts, to be able to repeat efforts in match (stifling defense and speed of execution). He pushed his players to their limits.

"We never stop running," says Ryohei Yamanaka. "We have progressed technically but we also have all those accumulated miles in reserve."

"I would like to remind everyone that we are not there by chance, this team has been assembled for 240 days this year," recalled Jamie Joseph before the game against Scotland.

Work Question, Jamie Joseph has joined in the footsteps of his predecessor Eddie Jones, the man who put Japan on the map of world rugby, with the famous victory over the Springboks (34-32) at the World Cup-2015 .

"The miracle Brighton" was adapted into a film but it remained without a future; the Cherry Blossoms had failed at the quarter-finals. "Our rugby is based on the foundations laid by Eddie, but this team has gone one step further and the bar is even higher," says Ryoko Nakamura.

- "He pressed the right buttons" -

To reach this milestone, Joseph, winner of Super Rugby at the head of the Otago Highlanders in 2015, seems to have invited himself into the minds of his players. Who repeat the speech ... "Because we had been successful at the last World Cup, there is a lot of waiting around us, summed captain Michael Leitch before the kick-off of the World Cup." have a job to do and defeat is not part of it ".

The message hammered, Jamie Joseph went to the next step. Since the beginning of the World Cup, he has gone into "pack leader" mode.

"Over the past four weeks, Jamie Joseph has had a huge impact on our performance," says Leitch. "He sent all the right messages, and pressed the right buttons - he was huge."

Jamie Joseph dropped out of his side to defend his team and his players against the attacks of the Scots, who hinted that the Brave Blossoms wanted to win, without playing because of typhoon, their ticket to the quarterfinals.

And he already pressed the next button, code-named "Japan-South Africa quarter-final quarter-final". The players are already possessed.

"We are not going back on the ground to lose," said captain Leitch. "We go to win."

© 2019 AFP