All Change For Japan..

[Rugby World Cup 2011, New Zealand]

Only Thompson, Kikutani, Onozawa and Nicholas retained

Japan have made 11 changes to their starting line-up for their opening Rugby World Cup match against France on Saturday.

Only Luke Thompson, Takashi Kikutani, Hirotoki Onozawa and Ryan Nicholas are retained by coach John Kirwan following the 20-14 warm-up win over the USA.

"These guys are definitely the guys who are on form. We had two guys who are unavailable through injury - Justin Ives and [Yuta] Imamura - so besides those two these are the 22 that we decided are playing the best at the moment," Kirwan said.

Thompson and winger Kosuke Endo started Japan's last World Cup match against Canada in 2007, while veteran winger Hirotoki Onozawa will match the World Cup appearance record for a Japanese player - equalling Masahiro Kunda (1991-1999) and Yukio Motoki (1995-2003) on nine.

Japan: 15 Shaun Webb, 14 Kosuke Endo, 13 Koji Taira, 12 Ryan Nicholas, 11 Hirotoki Onozawa, 10 James Arlidge, 9 Fumiaki Tanaka, 8 Ryukoliniasi Holani, 7 Michael Leitch, 6 Takashi Kikutani (c), 5 Toshizumi Kitagawa, 4 Luke Thompson, 3 Kensuke Hatakeyama, 2 Shota Horie, 1 Hisateru Hirashima.

Replacements: 16 Yusuke Aoki, 17 Nozomu Fujita, 18 Hitoshi Ono, 19 Itaru Taniguchi, 20 Atsushi Hiwasa, 21 Murray Williams, 22 Alisi Tupuailai.

Source : www.skysports.com

Rugby World Cup 2011 New Zealand

Bombay,