Thursday 10 August 2017 23:18, UK
England head coach Eddie Jones has travelled to Japan as the side's preparations for the 2019 Rugby World Cup begin to take shape.
Members of Jones' backroom team have joined him on the trip to scout possible training venues and gain an understanding of the country's climate ahead of the sport's biggest prize in two years' time.
The group will visit Tokyo, Yokohama, Miyazaki and Kobe while in Japan, and Jones - who led England to back-to-back Six Nations wins in March - insists it is crucial the team become as familiar as possible with the new surroundings.
"There are two years to go so we are getting to the very serious part of the build up to the Rugby World Cup," said Jones.
"I wanted to bring some of my staff over here from each department to start to familiarise themselves with Japan and understand the possible climatic conditions as well as get a feel of what it is going to be like to play in the World Cup here."
England will face Argentina, France, United States and Tonga in the pool stages of the 2019 tournament, and Jones is adamant he wants his squad's training base to be as normal as possible.
"We want to be in locations that are close to normal life, so we want our players to train hard and walk on the street and go for a coffee," he added.
"We've got a pretty good idea of when we'll arrive and we're just finalising our pre-World Cup camps and where they will be.
"We'll look to come here around September 3-6 and there is a possibility of playing a warm-up game shortly after that. We are looking to play similar teams to the ones we face in the pool stages."
