Japan will head to the Rugby World Cup in France in six months without the level of preparation it enjoyed for the past two tournaments, and Jamie Joseph's men are well aware that they each carry a heavy responsibility.
Beating rugby heavyweight England or Argentina is the probable requirement to reach the knockout phase for the Brave Blossoms, who will have neither the extended camps that preceded the 2015 and 2019 tournaments, nor the Joseph-coached Super Rugby side Sunwolves serving as a training outlet, as it did four years ago.
Joseph called up his potential core players for a two-day trip to Tokyo on a February weekend when there were no domestic League One fixtures and he was clear that he will not pick them if they cannot make the improvements demanded.
Presenting targets in various aspects of the game, Joseph asked the players to keep setting their sights on international standards ahead of his next squad announcement in June after the end of the League One season on May 20.
"Now is the start for the World Cup," said Saitama Wild Knights hooker Atsushi Sakate, who succeeded Michael Leitch as the national team captain last year.
While the domestic league has been boosted by an influx of overseas stars over the years — including South Africa's World Cup-winning scrumhalf Faf de Klerk for Yokohama Eagles this season — its overall level remains below the world's top leagues.
Veteran Shota Horie, the 37-year-old hooker who has been integral to Japan's rise through the last three World Cups, believes it is down to the players to raise their game in League One.
"We're no longer at a stage of doing things being bound or supervised," said Horie, who has been going strong with reigning champions Wild Knights alongside Sakate, prop Keita Inagaki and flyhalf Rikiya Matsuda, back after tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament last May.
"It's down to us doing it or not,"
Inagaki knows the players' daily activity at the club level now holds even more value.
"You must have the skill, physicality and mindset to fight against the world at any moment," the 32-year-old said.
Scrumhalves Naoto Saito and Yutaka Nagare have been locked in a healthy competition for the starting berth at Tokyo Sungoliath, whose attack has been spearheaded by Kotaro Matsushima, back from his two-season stint at Clermont in France.
Two matches against a second-string All Blacks XV will kick off Japan's six-match World Cup preparations in July, when they will also face Samoa and Tonga before taking on Fiji on Aug. 5 and traveling to face Italy on Aug. 26.
Leitch, now 34, has bounced back from a difficult spell following the 2019 tournament in Japan, excelling at Brave Lupus Tokyo as he readies himself for his fourth World Cup.
"We need to reach the world's top level (in each position)," the former captain said.