Japan join the immortals with Rugby World Cup heroics... now England look to follow suit

After hosts exit as heroes, Eddie Jones’ men will need game of their lives to beat the All Blacks
No shame in defeat: Japan coach Jamie Joseph consoles Kenki Fukuoka on Sunday
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Will Macpherson21 October 2019

We will see no more of Japan's terrific rugby team at this World Cup. But the winner of the final in Yokohama in 12 days will have to do something pretty special to pip the Brave Blossoms to the tale of the tournament.

They, and their millions of fans, will be what is remembered longest about the 2019 World Cup.

Even when they were on their way out on Sunday, they played as if they did not know it.

“The last five minutes of that match showed what type of team this is,” said their coach, Jamie Joseph. “A team that keep getting back up.”

Joseph’s Springbok counterpart, ­Rassie Erasmus, agreed it was a closer game than the 26-3 scoreline suggests. It had taken the Boks 66 minutes to get the job done. Japan were still squirming when South Africa had squeezed the life from their game.

In Pictures | Japan vs South Africa, Rugby World Cup | 20/10/2019

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There was the bravery of prop Jiwon Koo, the punch and panache of hooker Shota Horie, the effervescence of No8 Kazuki Himeno and the brilliance of the wingers Kenki Fukuoka and Kotaro Matsushima. That is before we even get to the totem, Michael Leitch.

Japan has a new set of sporting heroes but so does the world game. They galvanised a nation. We now say sayonara and ­arigatou gozaimasu to them but we do so in the knowledge that the possibilities for rugby in Japan seem endless.

Perhaps other parts of this wonderful corner of Asia will sit up and take notice of rugby, too? Certainly for every other plucky “minnow” (sport’s worst word?), the blueprint has been set.

Let us hope the authorities, both in Japan and beyond, are able to capitalise. Brett Gosper, World Rugby’s chief ­executive, was on Monday encouraging SANZAAR to include Japan in the Rugby Championship and reinstate the Sunwolves to Super Rugby, which is a good start.

Japan’s departure leaves us with two tantalising semi-finals between the tournament’s four best teams.

It is hard to believe it is 24 years since England and New Zealand have met at the World Cup. That was a semi-final, too, when the late, great Jonah Lomu trampled England in Cape Town.

They do not have much recent history either, having only played once in the last five years - that memorable, controversial one-point victory for the All Blacks at Twickenham in November.

It has been a strange lull in hostilities, given the two unions’ desperate ­appetite to commercialise their teams. New Zealand are back at Twickenham next November as the redress begins.

This was supposed to be a weekend of incredibly competitive quarter-finals but we had to wait three matches for one of those.

England and New Zealand, both appearing to benefit from Typhoon-induced two-week build-ups, blew Australia and Ireland away in fashion that is likely to provoke overhauls of the losing teams.

The All Blacks are very different from the team that won the tournament in 2015, which was so like the 2011 version. There is a youthful vim, ­particularly in the three-quarters, rather than wise head after wise head. A few remain but this is not a team relying on experience.

England, as Jamie George said, found a “big statement” showing against ­Australia but they will need to be better again if they are to make it to the final for the fourth time.

Encouragingly, England players were quibbling over aspects of their display - set-piece, ruthlessness - after the win over Australia. They cannot argue their composure is improving rapidly.

And certainly, that performance did feel like an arrival at a tournament at which they have been strangely quiet (three low-key wins and a cancellation will do that) before a first show of joy.

If Saturday was about statements, Sunday was a whole lot cagier and we should expect Wales’ meeting with the Springboks to be a brutal affair.

In Pictures | England vs Australia, World Cup quarter-final | 19/10/19

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Wales were some way wide of the mark this weekend, but - unlike against France - few surprises lie in store on Sunday. The Springboks will bring the bulldozer.

Eddie Jones says semi-final week is the toughest of the tournament, as the pressure and expectation rises, and for the fact that players have just come off a mammoth game.

He and his rivals need only remind their players that they are just 160 minutes from being the second team at this tournament to achieve national immortality.

A great tournament is nearing a great climax.

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