Hitoshi Ono has insisted that Japan can push South Africa until they are "scared" in their opening match of the Rugby World Cup.

Japan, who are the host nation for the 2019 tournament, have only won one match in seven previous appearances at the World Cup.

The country's record caps holder told reporters: "When you step out onto the field at a Rugby World Cup the atmosphere in incredible. It comes down to how you take it all in. Do you let it get to you and shrivel up, or do you enjoy it and feed off it?

"If you learn to have fun, it will fire you up and fired up is what we want to be when we take on South Africa. We're going to stay low when we tackle, we're going to keep reloading and push the South African players all the way to the end to a point where they become scared of us.

"If we can do that, I'm sure the fans in England will get behind Japan and we want to use that as motivation."

Japan will also face Samoa, Scotland and USA in their pool.