England take on Japan in the Rugby Union World Cup at the Allianz Riviera Stadium in Nice on Sunday night as the top two in Group D go head to head.
The Japanese had the perfect start to their campaign with a big win over Chile, meanwhile England also started off their World Cup with victory over Argentina. That leaves these as the top two teams in the group and this a potential group winner decider, even at this early stage.
Here, we’ll preview this match in the hopes we can find you the eventual winner.
Group favourites
England are the favourites to win the group and, as such, find themselves the heavy favourites to win this particular encounter. Given the teams in the rest of the group, this could end up being one of the trickier games that England face in this early round. They’ll be happy to get it out of the way, after a competitive opener with Argentina last weekend which ended with a 27-10 win, despite a very early red card for Tom Curry.
It was George Ford’s flawless kicking game that helped secure that victory and, if England can keep all 15 men on the field, they’ll be hoping they can score some tries in this encounter. If they can match up their running game with the kicking game, they’ll have a great chance of making it two wins from two and on their way to progressing from the group with a win here.
Past to repeat itself
There is a little bit of history between these nations, with the two meeting on three previous occasions. The first was all the way back in 1987, when England were convincing 60-7 winners. It would be more than 30 years before they met again, however, in 2018. That one was a much closer encounter, but England would again win 35-15 to make it two from two.
The most recent meeting came in November in 2022 in a friendly at Twickenham. Three first half tries sent England on their way to a resounding 52-13 victory on that day. The English fans won’t mind a repeat of that result here and while the score might not be as big, a relatively comfortable scoreline is still expected.
All out attack
Japan’s best chance of making a game of this is to go all out attack and take the game to their opponents. They had plenty of practice in their opener against Chile and scored 21 points either side of half time to run out 42-12 winners in the end. This will be much tougher for them, but they can’t just sit back and invite England onto them.
At least by attacking their opponents, they can control their own fate. That may play into England’s hands however, and could result in a hefty defeat. The Japanese are very much stuck between a rock and hard place here but, whatever happens, we’re expecting an eventful game in Nice.
