England coach Eddie Jones has cautioned that the typhoon might have a major disruption in the World Cup but says he’s contingency plans in place.
Typhoon Faxai moved northwest over the Pacific towards eastern Japan threatening to make landfall near Tokyo as early as Sunday night, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
England are due to leave Japan on Sunday and also the year’s 15th typhoon – packing winds of up to 180kph – is anticipated to reach coastal areas of the Kanto area between Sunday and early Monday.
Tournament organisers have planned for the possibility of needing to relocate teams from their bases or matches to places.
The stadiums against the United States at Kobe and Tonga in Sapporo, for the first two games of England, have roofs and Jones states the group will train indoors on turf.
“It’s likely to impact the World Cup, there is no doubt about it,” Jones said after his side’s 37-0 win over Italy at England’s closing warm-up game in Newcastle.
“You’ve just got to ride with it, be adaptable and figure out how it is possible to cope with the circumstance.
“Once the typhoon comes, you just can not go outside. It’s basically a lock-down. It may vary between being very violent to very mild.
“The problem is that can’t go outdoors but we’ve got thoughts of what we do if a typhoon ceased us training outside. We’ll instruct on artificial turf indoors.”
Jones is preparing to get a marked shift in conditions, after playing four warm-up matches on dry pitches.
Jones, with a mom that is Japanese-American and is married a Western woman he met while teaching in Sydney, to Hiroko Jones, is familiar with the possible perils, with lived for long periods in Japan.
Prior to being appointed at 2012 as head coach of the national team before the 2015 Rugby World 26, he twice coached club groups.
“South Africa played Japan [on Friday] and it had been quite hot and very humid,” he explained. “There was lots of dropped ball, it had been rather fatty, and that could increase the amount of hanging”
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