{"id":231939,"date":"2025-07-02T12:05:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/231939\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T12:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:05:18","slug":"eddie-jones-japan-enlist-the-services-of-ex-england-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/231939\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Jones&#8217; Japan enlist the services of ex-England international"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/england\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">England<\/a> centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/piers-francis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Piers Francis<\/a> has been brought in as a guest coach in the build-up to Japan\u2019s crunch Test against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/wales\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wales<\/a> this Saturday, according to Japanese rugby website, rugbyjp.com.<\/p>\n<p>Francis, 35, has spent the last year and a half playing club rugby in Japan\u2019s Third Division for Kurita Water Gush Akishima, having left <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/bath\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bath<\/a> in November 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Kent-born Francis won all nine of his England caps under Eddie Jones, who is 18 months into his second spell as the Brave Blossoms\u2019 head coach.<\/p>\n<p>He was a member of the England squad that reached the final of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/rugby-world-cup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rugby World Cup<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/japan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Japan<\/a> in 2019, making just one tournament appearance \u2013 the 45-7 win against the USA.<\/p>\n<p>Japan have won just 11 matches second time around under Jones, who boasted a 65% win record in his first spell, including the notable scalp of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa<\/a> at RWC 2015.<\/p>\n<p>A win over Wales in Kitakyushu this weekend will lift Japan above their opponents in the world rugby rankings for the first time since they were introduced in 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England centre Piers Francis has been brought in as a guest coach in the build-up to Japan\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-231939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114783553057270557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}