England v Japan: Warner Dearns on his unlikely route to leading Brave Blossoms

Warner Dearns didn’t want to go to Japan. Now, he doesn’t want to leave.

A decade ago, Dearns’ father Grant got a job as a strength and conditioning coach with top-flight Japanese side NEC Green Rockets, taking the family from New Zealand’s North Island to a satellite city outside Tokyo.

For Dearns, like most 14-year-olds, swapping class-mates, countries, continents and cultures didn’t appeal.

“I said I didn’t want to go,” says the second row, who will co-captain Japan against England at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.

“My sister and I wanted to stay with our grandma and grandad [in New Zealand].”

But, reluctantly, they made the trip, with Dearns’ mother Tanya, a former New Zealand netballer, giving up her own coaching job to help the family settle in Japan.

“The first year or two took a bit to adapt to, it is a very different culture from New Zealand, and the language barrier didn’t help much either,” remembers Dearns.

“At high school there was no-one else who spoke English. I was the kid who stood out, the only one with blond curly hair, so it was lots of fun.”

There were other reasons that Dearns stood out.

Even as a teenager, he stood 6ft 8in tall and weighed more than 19 stone (120.6kg).

In New Zealand, Deans had been more interested in basketball than rugby. But at Kashiwa Senior High School – one of Japan’s strongest rugby-playing schools – they moulded him into a monster prospect.

To supplement his size and galloping, long-legged sprint, Dearns’ school coaches introduced gymnastics into his training schedule, having him hurdle team-mates and perform flips, to improve his agility around the pitch.

Away from school, he would hit the gym at his dad’s employers, working out alongside the likes of former England full-back Alex Goode.

Given that super-charged rugby education, Dearns progressed fast.