Rugby World Cup shocker: Thank you Japan! That was Special

As they admired the pyrotechnic display put on at Brighton & Hove, the Springbok fans were unaware that these would not be the only fireworks they would see that day.

“Ada utade nobe ni wa kuchiji

ware wa mata natabi umarete hoko wo toramuzo”

32-29: The Bravery

Any sane team would have taken the penalty kick.

It was the logical option. Kick the ball betwixt the damn sticks, get the three points and go home with the draw – and with it the greatest result in your team’s history.

They weren’t even supposed to be in with a chance. They were the makeweights of the group, the not-too-easy but easy enough little guys who would set the big boys up well for the tougher clashes coming up later in the tournament. They were supposed to get pummeled; if any match was a foregone conclusion it was this one – hell, they hadn’t even bothered showing it live on terrestrial TV back home.

No other team would have done this. These were the mighty South Africans they were playing against for crying out loud! The legendary Springboks; a team whose scrumming prowess is the stuff of legend; a team who have built their fearsome reputation on the strength and pure, unadulterated power of their massive forward lines; a team no one gave them a chance in hell against.

When Francois Louw scored the first try – driving the maul over the line with typical unstoppable power – it looked to have set the tone for the match. Die Bokke would simply outmuscle the Cherry Blossoms.

And yet there they were.

Choosing not to go for the kick, choosing not to go for an assured place in their country’s sporting history, choosing rather to go for something more. Choosing to go for glory.

Insanity! No other team would have done this. No other team, though – no other country – in the world is quite like Japan.

The Minnows

The legendary Springboks had been beaten by only three teams in World Cup history – New Zealand, Australia and England; the Old Guard. These four have shared every World Cup ever played amongst them, and no one has ever even come close to challenging their domination in a game where the talent divide between the haves and the have-nots is starker than almost any other.

Japan have had a long storied history in the game, with the earliest recorded instance of rugby being played on the island nation in 1866, but they have never posed any real threat to the true power centres of the game (that being the aforementioned big four as well as Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and to a lesser extent Argentina and Italy).

A map depicting the best results earned by countries at the World Cup.There is no doubting where the power centres are in World Rugby

They have automatically qualified for every World Cup but have done little of any note in these tournaments. Their only ever victory prior to this WC was against fellow bottom-feeders (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) Zimbabwe, and their match records against the big boys, especially in World Cups, doesn’t make for very pretty reading.

Aside from the quite frankly ludicrous 145-17 hiding they received from the almighty All Blacks back in ’95 (a game that still holds the record for most points scored in a WC match), they had been hammered 91-3 and 72-18 (by Australia and Wales respectively) in 2007 and 83-7 by New Zealand in 2011.

Sure, they will be hosting the competition in 2019 (the first Tier-2 country to receive that honour), but come on! Teams like Japan aren’t even supposed to inhabit the same league as Die Bokke.

Japan beating South Africa? The bookies gave them odds of 66-1 (no sporting side has actually delivered on such high odds, so there’s that), the experts didn’t even mention it in their analysis and not even the most well-liquored of rugby fans even entertained the thought. Japan, beat South Africa? Hah! Drink up son, and let’s just hope they score a consolation try or two.

After all, that’s what the minnows are there for.

32-34: The Game

It was all set up against them. The Japanese were smaller of stature, lighter of frame and laughably inexperienced when compared with the mighty Springboks. And yet somehow they ripped out a page from the big bad book of sporting clichés and turned their perceived weaknesses into their greater strengths.

For this they used that most underrated of sporting qualities – intelligence. Like South Africa’s Fourie du Preez, who plays his club rugby in Japan, said, "the Springboks had been outsmarted".

They were smaller, so they tackled lower – their chop tackles that they had perfected over the years to compensate for their stature being put to good effect. They were lighter, so they ran faster – Die Bokke’s had always been a power-based game and the Japanese knew they were susceptible against fast teams that passed the ball around quickly, so they did just that, moving it around with a slickness that would have made even the All Blacks proud.

(An interesting aside here for football fans – Japan’s coach Eddie Jones had, in the build-up to the World Cup, consulted with Josep ‘Pep’ Guardiola to understand the passing game the Catalan’s teams are so famous for!)

Michael Leitch converts after Japan outmanouvered – and unbelievably – outmuscled the South Africans

They combined this game-plan (a wonderful testament to the coaching brains of Jones, Steve Borthwick and Marc Dal Maso) with a never-say-die spirit that bordered on the Quixotic.

Aside from when they opened the scoring with an Ayumu Goromaru penalty (who ended up scoring 24 points), they were chasing the Springboks for almost the entirety of the match. And yet each time it felt like Die Bokke were going to pull away – and we would go “well played Japan, that was a good attempt” – they were pulled back. The Japanese quite simply did not roll over in the traditional, stereotypical, minnows’ way.

They clawed their way back in. Every single time they went behind, they came back harder to draw level. This was in no small part due to the fact that their fitness levels – that crucial, oft overlooked, element that often separates the best teams from the rest – were quite simply off the charts, and it spoke volumes of the sheer commitment and dedication they put into their play.

And at the end of the day, when it really mattered, they were brave. Twice they had the opportunity to go for the penalty kick – with just minutes left on the clock – and twice they turned down the chance for the easy draw.

They had bloody well earned their right to win. They weren’t about to let something as mundane as “fear” or “sane, rational, safe, thinking” get in the way of that right.

They went for the Glory. And by God, they got it.

“Ada utade nobe ni wa kuchijiware wa mata natabi umarete hoko wo toramuzo”

“Foe unvanquished, I won't perish in the field;I'll be born again, to take up the halberd seven more times”

The Cherry Blossoms, nay, the Brave Blossoms didn’t perish in the field. Channeling the spirit of Bushido, and the words of the late General Kuribayashi Tadamichi (who in penning this poem was expressing his desire to be a part of Nippon’s grand traditions of honour and bravery above all), the team fought for every inch, and kept coming back for more.

It will remain one of sport’s most beautiful moments.

The Aftermath

“I have to apologise to the nation. It was just not good enough. It was unacceptable and I take full responsibility.” – in a country (at least the Afrikaner bits of the place) where rugby is religion, this full-blooded apology from their coach, Heyneke Meyer, is the least they expected.

It was an almight shock for Die Bokke; a carefully built reputation for ruthlessness lay in tatters now, and they will have to come back strong against Samoa to regain credibility as title challengers. (Watch out for that by the way, Samoa!)

But this moment wasn’t about the South African defeat.

Ayumu Goromaru celebrating his spectacularly well-orchestrated try with his teammates

This was about the Japanese win.

The sheer, unbridled, joy of seeing the underdog win – it was not one of those fluke-y “they got lucky” or “the other guys were complacent” wins, but one of those rare ones where the small guy went up against the Big Beast, stood toe-to-toe and came out, deservedly, on top. In the sterile, predictable and often mundane world of elite level sport – where the Big Boys with the Big Money and the Best Resources and the Old Traditions almost always win – this was Special.

Japan's victory rekindles the hope in that very strange and very beautiful notion – if we put our body, mind and soul into it, just about anyone can create something special, regardless of the odds against them. It reminds us that sport can be a source of the purest Joy.

And for that - Domo arigato, Nippon. Thank you very much, Japan.