We can upset England, says Japan head coach Jamie Joseph

Japan head coach Jamie Joseph believes his side can cause an upset against England at Twickenham on Saturday.

Joseph has made eight changes to the Japan team that lost against New Zealand earlier this month and he is optimistic about their chances.

"It's the best team that's available," he said. "We have some injuries back at home which hasn't helped but I'm confident in terms of the way we prepare.

"This week has been really good, the guy's mind-set, they're very aware of what's coming on the weekend."

On Monday, England head coach Eddie Jones said they were preparing to "smash" his former side Japan; in what will be England's third autumn international.

Joseph told Sky Sports this afternoon, that he was not surprised by Jones' comments.

He said: "The fact England are targeting us physically is no secret, what we do about that we'll see on Saturday. It hasn't changed our approach to the game but we're going to have to tackle them aren't we.

"We're going to have to take what comes at us and throw something back. I think some of our players are up to it mentally and physically, we do have smaller men and we do play the game differently because of that so we try to keep the game quick."

Akihito Yamada - who played under Jones when he led Japan to a famous victory over South Africa in 2015 - said he is drawing on the confidence from that win ahead of the England test.

"As players we have confidence, we experienced that moment and kept building the new system, it's going to be very good."

Japan: 15 Willam Tupou, 14 Akihito Yamada, 13 Timothy Lafaele, 12 Ryoto Nakamura, 11 Kenki Fukuoka, 10 Yu Tamura, 9 Fumiaki Tanaka, 8 Kazuki Himeno, 7 Masakatsu Nishikawa, 6 Michael Leitch (captain), 5 Uwe Helu, 4 Wimpie van der Walt, 3 Jiwon Koo, 2 Atsushi Sakate, 1 Keita Inagaki

Replacements: 16 Yusuke Niwai, 17 Koki Yamamoto, 18 Asaeli Ai Valu, 19 Samuela Anise, 20 Hendrik Tui, 21 Shunsuke Nunomaki, 22 Yutaka Nagare, 23 Rikiya Matsuda.