Rugby World Cup 2019: Steve Borthwick, the 2015 Japan dream and his return to where ‘The Brighton Miracle’ all began

Four years after helping Japan to the greatest Rugby World Cup upset of all time under the guidance of Eddie Jones, Borthwick believes England can write their own miracle story that all starts in Miyazaki

After returning to the source of Japan’s greatest rugby achievement, Steve Borthwick could not help but look at the similarities between ‘The Brighton Miracle’ and England’s budding campaign that he hopes will end in Rugby World Cup glory.

Borthwick was Eddie Jones’s assistant when they guided Japan to the biggest World Cup upset ever seen when the Brave Blossoms defeated former world champions South Africa in 2015, to record the first ever tier two victory over a tier one side.

Japan came within a whisker of reaching the quarter-finals of the World Cup in England, but it was a journey that started three months before the start of the tournament in Miyazaki, where Jones put his squad through a sweltering 12-week training camp.

It brought back golden memories for Borthwick when he returned to the scene of the what became the story of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, so much so that the premiere of ‘The Brighton Miracle’ was held on Wednesday afternoon in Tokyo, and while Japan ultimately failed on reaching their quarter-final target, it is a journey that will forever stick with the former England captain.

“I distinctly remember Eddie addressing the Japan team in 2014,” Borthwick recalled. “He said, ‘We can’t win the World Cup, Japan aren’t a good enough team, but we can be the team of the World Cup.’ He said, ‘We can inspire a nation, we can make people want to play rugby in this country, we can create a new history for Japanese rugby’. He said, ‘We can make the quarter finals’.

“Did that team create a new history? Did they inspire people? I think everything I have seen when I have been back out here since says yes. They were the team of the World Cup. We were a lot of people’s second favourite team. We didn’t make the quarter finals, so we failed on the third one.

“But if I played a small part in helping players achieve things they had not imagined before, memories they have for the rest of their lives; if we helped inspire kids to play rugby then I am very happy to have played a small part in that.”

Those three challenges apply to England too, although while they have been called on by Jones to inspire a nation and become the team of the World Cup, their aim is not to reach the quarter-finals, but to win the whole thing.

With the England backs joining Borthwick at Miyazaki Kita High School for a presentation from 1,000 school children welcoming the team to their city, it was not lost on the England coach that Japan international rugby players of the future could be sitting within the four walls of the school’s assembly hall, as he remembered himself.

“I was 14 years old when I said, ‘I want to play rugby for England’,” he added. “As a kid I would just dream of it. Our players would all have had, at some point, the same dream of playing for England. Now they are in the England squad.

“There are kids back in England saying this is their dream and we have an opportunity to inspire. It is a wonderful sport and a wonderful opportunity we all have to help others. I enjoy that. If I can play a small part in that, brilliant. We will do our very best here. We have prepared well. We are excited about the tournament. It is great to be out here in Japan.”

Borthwick was part of the famous 'Brighton Miracle' at the 2015 Rugby World Cup (Getty)

For the majority of this England squad though, their own memories are much more painful than Borthwick’s. For 15 of them, they experienced a similar pool-stage exit to Japan as England recorded their worst result ever at a World Cup four years ago.

It means that they are taking nothing for granted, and even though they kick the campaign off with a four-day double-header against what should be Pool C’s weakest opposition in Tonga and the United States, lock Joe Launchbury remembers how easily a planned two-month campaign can end in a matter of days.

“We have talked about how quickly the tournament is going to go now,” he said. “You spend such a long time building towards it and think of it as this really long seven- or eight-week tournament.

“We have got two games within four days when we get out there and that is half the pool done already. We know we have got to be right bang on it from the start and although we want to keep getting better as the tournament goes on, we need to start really well. We have had some tough competition in the four warm-up games. We have played against some quality sides and that has been on purpose so that when we get out there we don’t miss any opportunity because it could be over before it has started.”

Listen to Episode Two of The Indy Rugby Podcast.