Super Rugby champions the Otago Highlanders issued a terse "no comment" today in response to media reports linking coach Jamie Joseph with the vacant position in charge of the Japan national team.
Japan are in the market for a new head coach after Eddie Jones, who guided them to an unprecedented three wins at the recent Rugby World Cup, left to join South Africa's Stormers.
Australian Jones has since been poached by the Rugby Football Union to lead the England through to the next World Cup in 2019, which will be hosted by Japan.
Japanese media reports said Joseph was picked from a shortlist of five candidates for the post and that the Japan Rugby Union (JRU) were negotiating with the Highlanders about an arrangement where he could perform both roles.
"It has always been this organisation's policy not to respond to speculative comment on players, or coaches for that matter, coming and going from our club," Highlanders chief executive Roger Clark said a one-line statement today.
The 46-year-old's contract with the Dunedin-based team ends at the conclusion of the 2016 competition.
A former All Blacks loose forward who earned 20 test caps from 1992-95, Joseph knows Japanese rugby well. He spent five years playing club rugby in the country and won nine caps for the "Brave Blossoms" in 1999, including at that year's World Cup.
He was not the only New Zealander being linked with a major job in Japanese rugby this week.
Japanese media reports said former Wellington Hurricanes boss Mark Hammett was set to be announced as the inaugural coach of the country's new Super Rugby team, the Sunwolves.
The former All Blacks hooker left the Hurricanes after four seasons in charge in 2014 and moved to Cardiff, returning to New Zealand earlier this year for personal reasons.
There has been considerable concern in southern hemisphere rugby circles that the Sunwolves have not secured a coach or publicly announced their squad a little over two months before their first Super Rugby match on February 27.
Kyodo News, however, said Hammett and a playing group would be unveiled on Monday.
