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Japan’s 34-32 victory over South Africa has been – correctly – described as the “greatest upset” in the history of the Rugby World Cup tournament.
When the teams ran on to the field, the Springboks were ranked number three in World Rugby and the Brave Blossoms number 15. The Brave Blossoms had won one World Cup match, the Springboks had the best record of all the teams in the tournament, winning two Webb Ellis trophies (1995 and 2007) in only five tournaments.
Punters’ expectations for further Brave Blossoms victories were so high that on at least one site 90 per cent of the money for the match against Scotland was placed on Japan, at prices of $6.00 (Japan) to $1.14 (Scotland).
The bookmakers obviously got their odds right. But that is not to prove that the punters were wrong, given the brilliant performance from Japan against the Springboks.
The way the Brave Blossoms played, running the ball at the bigger Springboks, confronting them with unusual angles and charges made from the advantage line, the strong set pieces and their tenacious defence, suggested that this was a side that could make the finals.
At half-time in their next match against Scotland, the score line was 12-7 to Scotland. Scotland were awarded numerous penalties to convert for point, while the Brave Blossoms unleashed a number of attacks that sparkled the way their attacks against the Springboks did.
Then there was a try from a driving maul by the brilliant Amanaki Mafi to give a strong hint of what could come in the second half, perhaps, for the Brave Blossoms and for Scotland.
But it was not to be. The Brave Blossoms ran out of energy. They were leg-weary and exhausted from their heroics of four days earlier.
Japan kicked a penalty, Scotland scored five unanswered tries, two to Matt Bennett and one each to John Hardie (the New Zealand born and bred flanker), Tommy Seymour and Finn Russell (a terrier of a fly half).
The point here is that Scotland’s fitness is not superior to that of the Brave Blossoms of that sensational opening match against the Springboks. It was Japan who came back at the end of that match to snatch a victory with a series of phase plays, several of them starting up after a penalty that would have given a draw was turned down.
The last 10 minutes of the Japan-South Africa match belonged to Japan.
There has to be some explanation, then, why the Brave Blossoms were blown away in the second half of their match against the Springboks. That explanation lies, mainly but not entirely, in the fact that the side was given only four days to recover from their opening match.
It is true, too, that Scotland played particularly well, especially in the second half. Vern Cotter is another coach from the New Zealand assembly line of shrewd, uncompromising and inspirational mentors who have a knack of getting the best out of the talent left to them and finding more talent from players previously not considered for higher honours.
Scotland played about as well as any of their teams have in a World Cup, with perhaps the exception of the splendid side that was beaten by the All Blacks in the 1987 semi-final.
And thank goodness they wore a jersey, with a tartan embellishment down the side admittedly, that honoured the tradition of the historic navy-blue jersey worn by great Scottish teams in the past. The days of the purple, black, grey and blue dog’s breakfast outfit of previous years seems to be discarded. Good.
The Brave Blossoms coach Eddie Jones (to his credit) did not use the short turnaround as an excuse for his side’s collapse in the second half against Scotland. He claimed his side did “run out of wind” in a second half during which Scotland scored 33. But he did point out an obvious fact: “You look at everything involved in any sort of physical intent, you need a six-day turnaround. That’s not the case here.”
The tight turnaround was, as one journalist explained, an “inconvenient fact”.
Fiji, after opening the World Cup with a 35-11 loss against England had an extra day before playing their second match of the tournament against the Wallabies.
The Wallabies played far and away, in my opinion, the best 40 minutes of any team so far in the 2015 World Cup against Fji. The half-time scoreline was 18-3, and an ebullient Greg Martin was predicting that the final score “could be anything!”.
As it happened, Fiji fought back to score 10 points to the 10 points scored by the Wallabies. Towards the end of the match, with the score line 25-13 and Fiji strongly in the ascendancy, Michael Hooper turned down the chance to go for a five-metre rolling maul and got Bernard Foley to convert the penalty.
This took the Wallabies two scores in front of Fiji. It also seem to take the wind out of Fiji’s sails. The momentum that seemed to be so strong petered out.
It seems likely that the five-day turnaround had an impact on the energy levels of the Fijians.
We get now to a consideration of the tournament schedule that has seemingly been so hostile to the chances of Japan and Fiji (now over in my opinion) of making the finals.
The schedule is an improvement on the 2011 Rugby World Cup draw where only the second tier nations were forced, sometimes several times in the tournament, to have a shortened turnaround.
This time tier one nations have short turnarounds, too. But there is a big difference between the All Blacks having to play Namibia or presumably the Wallabies playing Uruquay, and Fiji playing the Wallabies and Japan playing Scotland.
France played Romania after a turnaround of four days, after beating Italy 32-10 in their opening match. It took France until the 70th minute of their match against Romania before they scored their bonus point four tries.
The organising committee for the 2019 World Cup in Japan needs to plan their schedule with the view to ensuring that a minimum turnaround of six days between matches is established for all the teams. If necessary, the tournament could start on a Wednesday which would create the possibility of staggering matches appropriately.
What Japan’s sensational performance against the Springboks has revealed is that the gap between tier one nations and tier two and three nations is decreasing.
Virtually every player in the tournament plays as a professional, at different levels obviously. Even Namibia, with only 1000 or so adult players, fields a squad with half of the players being professionals.
And it shows, the days when Namibia can be totally thrashed, as they were with the Wallabies scoring 122 points, are over. The All Blacks scored nine tries against them in their 58-14 victory, but were so impressed with their true grit that they arranged for a drink or two or three after the match.
“They were worthy opponents,” Steve Hansen said after the match. “They gave everything they could give and that’s all you can ask of a man in a rugby match.” Well said.
In the France-Romania match, we had the sight of the Romanian pack pulverising the French scrum on several occasions.
Uruguay, too, had some impressive forward play against Wales. And the Argentinian Pumas played so strongly against the All Blacks in their opening match that, at half-time, it looked as though a second remarkable upset was on the cards.
It is too soon, though, for most of the tier two nations to make it through to the finals. Perhaps in 2019 some interesting finalists will emerge.
For now, judging on the opening matches and making some concessions to rugby history in the case of the Springboks, my fearless predictions to finalists are:
Pool A: Australia and England
Pool B: South Africa and Scotland
Pool C: New Zealand and Argentina
Pool D: France and Ireland
The usual suspects, in other words. But whether it will be the usual suspects in the final remains an open question, so far.