UKAF Expecting 'Tough Game' Against French In IDRC Semi-Final

The captain of the UK Armed Forces rugby union team says his team have had to get used to different climate conditions in Japan, ahead of their International Defence Rugby Cup (IDRC) semi-final.

Should the British side beat the French military, they will face one of New Zealand's Defence Blacks or the Fijian Forces in the final.

The UKAF head coach has made seven changes from his starting 15 that thrashed Georgia last week - Ken Dowding and Ben Priddey come into the front row, Toots Vakalukali and Matt Dawson at six and seven.

Raumakita and Fataiki take their places in midfield, whilst Craig Duncan moves to full-back.

However, the game is also about those who could come off the bench.

UKAF's Aircraft Engineering Technician, Scott Makepeace, said: "Obviously we're three different services and we go from Inter Services where everyone's trying to win and obvious rivalry when we come together we're proud to wear the combined services, the UKAF shirt.

"Now we're one team and it's nice to see how quickly everyone can adapt to become one team and we've really done well to bond really quickly."

They face the French forces at Camp Asaka, to the north of Tokyo - the home of Japanese military sport. 

UKAF's Sergeant Dave Manning said: "All three services play their opponents over in France or back in the UK, so we're familiar opponents and we've done it for the last few years.

"So it'll be nice to play them on foreign fields, over in Japan, where the climatic conditions are a lot more difficult than back in the UK or France.

"I think it's going to be a tough game - they didn't have probably the strongest result against Japan [in the last round], but we know that they're going to come back a completely different beast."

The semi-final kick-off time of 11:30am local time in Japan (3:30am UK time), means they will have to face playing in the midday sun, and acclimatisation has been a major priority in the build-up.

UKAF skipper, Captain Jamie Miller, said: "The conditions certainly from our first game against Georgia to now are completely different actually - we're talking a ten-degree shift and the humidity's right down.

"Certainly the conditions are more in our favour but we need to concentrate on the French now."