TOKYO: Japan captain Michael Leitch ensured enduring popularity in his adopted homeland after playing a key role in calming his team’s nerves as they laboured to a 30-10 victory over Russia in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup. The New Zealand-born flanker, who moved to Sapporo in northern Japan as a 15-year-old and now owns a coffee shop in Tokyo, said he had been “all over the place” in practice in the run-up to the historic opener to the first World Cup in Asia, taken aback by the scale of the media attention on the hosts. By the looks of his teammates, Leitch was not alone in suffering from some nerves about performing to the high expectations of a demanding Japanese public and admitted afterwards that his team was “100%” nervous. There were errors aplenty in a ragged first-half Japan eventually closed out 12-7 thanks to a Kotaro Matsushima double after Kirill Golosnitskiy had opened the scoring for a limited but game Russia side. The talismanic skipper, who missed a chunk of the year with a groin injury, orchestrated Japan’s jaw-dropping 34-32 victory over South Africa in their opening game in the World Cup four years ago, arguably the…