Japan coach Eddie Jones has devised 'red-hot' plan to stop Springboks at Wembley

Japan coach Eddie Jones says his team will celebrate the tenth anniversary of their famous Rugby World Cup victory over the Springboks with a “red-hot” shot at another miracle when the two sides meet at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday.

Jones, who masterminded the “Miracle of Brighton” in 2015, believes his current Brave Blossoms squad can once again rattle the world champions — and insists he knows the formula to do it.

“I don’t think it’s any secret when you’re playing against South Africa — and they don’t make it a secret — that they get 30 metres from your line, two forwards come around the same way and you know it’s coming, you’ve just got to be good enough to stop it,” Jones said on the Rugby Unity podcast.

“You’ve got to be able to neutralise the high ball, and if you can stop those two parts, you give yourselves a chance of winning the game.”

Since that unforgettable upset in Brighton, Jones has gone on to coach England and Australia before returning to Japan, where he is now seeking to rekindle that same spark a decade later.

The Australian coach also has inside knowledge of what makes the Boks tick — he served as an assistant to Jake White when South Africa lifted the World Cup in 2007.

Jones understands that challenging the Springboks in the set pieces would be risky, and he plans to keep those confrontations to a minimum. He also revealed that he drew valuable lessons from New Zealand’s recent defeat to South Africa in Wellington during the Rugby Championship.

“When you get possession, you’ve got to be accurate and you’ve got to be sharp,” Jones explained.

“The Boks give you opportunities to attack. They play a half-blitz defence where the winger can come in from the 15 metres to close at the near post, so you’ve either got to try to play through that — which is one way — or play over it, or, like New Zealand traditionally do, try to play around it, which is fraught with high risk and little return.

“We’ll try to find a way to break that down and give it a red-hot go.”

Also appearing on the podcast was former Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie, who predicted that South Africa would stick to their tried-and-tested power game.

“I think South Africa will try and steamroll Japan. There won’t be any change in their game plan. They’ll use the high ball, test Japan that way, and challenge their scrum — both on attack and defence — all the things you would expect,” McKenzie said.

“They will run very direct and try to bulldoze them,” he continued. “Japan will have to tackle well and then be precise in attack. They have to try and control the tempo of the game, limit the Boks’ set-piece opportunities, keep moving, and not let the game stop too much.”