Japan vs Scotland: The Brave Blossoms have once again knocked rugby off its axis – and made more history in the process
After beating Scotland in front of 70,000 home fans, Japan are through to the quarter-finals of the competition for the first time ever
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Your support makes all the difference.What a watershed moment for the game. It’s the greatest rugby shock since, well, the last time the Brave Blossoms knocked us all off our axis.
Japan are through to the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup for the first time ever. To face South Africa. After seeing off Ireland and destroying Scotland in their pool. In 2019 those are sentences that make total sense.
From the start of this competition, we knew Japanese fans were dedicated. They proved it again against Ireland. But if there was any blue in the crowd here in Yokohama, it was because there were a tiny number of empty navy seats around the ground.
The national anthem was haunting. The red and white-wrapped crowd chanted in unison. Then their team uncorked a bottle of magic.
Whatever you have heard about the slick, pacey rugby the Scots like, for over 20 minutes they were made witness to an exhibition of the quickest rugby in the game. For a large chunk of this game Japan played at an unprecedented speed.
It was more than that, though. Four years ago, when the Brave Blossoms defeated the Springboks in Brighton, they showed a glint of steeliness to go with the pace. But there were long period where that Eddie Jones-coached team was up against it and they performed the most glorious heist in winning that opener in 2015.
Here they did something possibly more impressive. After the Scots scored first, through a converted Finn Russell try, this Japan side put their foot on the throttle, raced to a lead, and held onto it.
Sure, they put on two highlight reel tries, the first with a fine offload to Kotaro Matsushima, set loose by national hero Kenki Fukuoka, and the second with wince-inducing interplay that saw prop Keita Inagaki flop over. They also got another two, with Fukuoka book-ending half-time with scores.
But the sewing-machine regularity of their attack was there to go alongside the undeniable force of their will. Scotland came back into things. In a game all about bedlam, the Scots will still create chaos of their own.
After the game Scotland boss Gregor Townsend rued opportunities missed, commenting how they played some good stuff but totally faded in a section that really mattered. Later, they punched in two extra scores to go along with their first, but couldn’t get the fourth. By the end Japan kept them at arms length, winning by seven.
It would have been a karmic gaffe had this game ended in a draw, with Scotland chasing a score at 28-21 with mere minutes left. In the build-up we heard so much about the insult to the great tradition of World Cups it would be had this fixture been cancelled out by Typhoon Hagibis and shoved into the record books as a nil-nil draw. But Japan simply wouldn’t let Scotland equalise anyway.
The fans kept up the intensity too. The organised, almost policed nature of their chanting sat at ironic contrast to the free-wheeling, popping play of their team out wide. But they complemented each other.
Which means that the Springboks are next, in Tokyo. Perhaps it was the game everyone really wanted, but dared not think would happen. Until Ireland were knocked over.
South Africa will have seen the seesaw-style of attack from Japan, where they pass one way, then from the ruck pass the other, before striking out wide. Play like that, many will think, can be nullified by squashings in the pack.
Make no mistake, this iteration of the Springboks is different from 2015, too. Vastly, in fact. They definitely have the bruisers, but they also have inventive threats. Elusive wing Cheslin Kolbe has been an exciting fit for Rassie Erasmus’s side and will be raring to go in the knock-outs. Faf de Klerk, Willie le Roux and Warrick Gelant offer different dimensions out of the back-line.
Maybe it won’t come down to invention. Maybe there are only vapours left in that magic bottle anyway. World Cup organisers won’t mind. They have seen incredible things in a land they hope will be the gateway to introducing more of the Asian continent to the game. Japan have already inspired. How refreshing is it to think they might, just might, keep it up?
The history books must be sick of the sight of the Brave Blossoms.
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