Japan coach Eddie Jones liken his side's Rugby World Cup match against Samoa on Saturday to facing a massive opponent in the boxing ring, and so he hopes quick and accurate counter-punching secures a victory on points.
Both have a win and a loss each in Pool B, and the winner will keep alive its quarterfinal hopes.
"We're playing one of the most powerful teams in the world, and in every position we're giving height and weight away," Jones said on Friday. "They want to wrestle, we don't want to. They want us up against the ropes, rope-a-dope style, but we want to be winning points with jabs, simple as that."
It promises to be a passionate affair in Milton Keynes, where both teams will field their most experienced World Cup lineups: 615 test caps for Japan, 346 for Samoa.
"Samoa's very much a momentum team, so when they have their set-piece you need to try and limit the momentum they get, and conversely when it's our set-piece, it will be very important for us to hold ball," Jones said.
"Samoa's got a very heavy pack. The way our scrum's developed in the last two years we take a fair bit of confidence into the game."
No matter what happens next, Japan's World Cup ride has already been eye-catching.
It started in the best, and most unimaginable, way possible: A 34-32 victory against two-time World Cup winner South Africa in Brighton secured with an injury-time try.
The decibel levels reached in that game were so high they might have even scared the seagulls flying over England's sunny coastal town.
Japan's incredible performance brought the tournament alight, and sent rugby's popularity rocketing up overnight back home. The next encounter against Scotland was awaited like never before in a country where baseball, sumo, and football hog the sporting headlines.
"The last game against Scotland, 20 million people watched," Jones said at a pre-match news conference, pausing to marvel at that statistic. "That's the whole population of Australia, and probably includes the kangaroos as well. Can you believe that? It's incredible."
Japan lost 45-10 to the Scots in that game, conceding five tries during a second-half onslaught, but Jones thinks his players were ill-prepared.
"Playing Scotland after South Africa we only had four days turnaround, and we had a four-and-a-half-hour bus trip," he lamented. "That was difficult, and I thought the boys did really well."
Jones, who was born in Australia and previously coached the Wallabies, maintains his side can still surprise a few people.
"Our target has always been to reach the quarterfinals," he said. "At the start, people said that was a joke, but now we're in a position to do that."
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