Wholesale changes for Japan

Japan coach John Kirwan has made wholesale changes to his line-up for Friday's Pool A clash against New Zealand.

Kirwan names second string line-up

Japan coach John Kirwan has made wholesale changes to his line-up for Friday's Pool A clash against New Zealand in Hamilton. Kirwan, a member of the All Blacks side that won the tournament in 1987, has made 10 changes and named virtually a second-string XV. Only Hirotoki Onozawa, Toshizumi Kitagawa, Koji Taira, Michael Leitch and Takashi Kikutani retain their places after the 47-21 loss to France. Japan: 15 Taihei Ueda, 14 Takahisa Usuzuki, 13 Koji Taira, 12 Yuta Imamura, 11 Hirotoki Onozawa, 10 Murray Williams, 9 Atsushi Hiwasa, 8 Takashi Kikutani (c), 7 Michael Leitch, 6 Itaru Taniguchi, 5 Toshizumi Kitagawa, 4 Hithoshi Ono, 3 Nozomu Fujita, 2 Yusuke Aoki, 1 Naoki Kawamata.
Replacements: 16 Hiroki Yuhara, 17 Kensuke Hatakeyama, 18 Yuji Kitagawa, 19 Sione Talikavili Vatuvei, 20 Tomoki Yoshida, 21 Shaun Webb, 22 Alisi Tupuailai.