Jittery Japan find feet to roll Russia
THE curtain was raised on Asia’s first Rugby World Cup — then Japan overcame their stage fright to secure the victory this competition needed. Fireworks and flame throwers filled the Tokyo night sky, but the host nation almost choked as the stadium filled up with smoke and expectation. Japanese rugby fans had waited four years for this game and arrived expecting to watch their side run riot against Russia, the lowest-ranked side in the tournament. However, they trailed for 39 minutes and were only saved by a hat-trick from winger Kotaro Matsushima, the new man of the moment, whom coach Jamie Joseph compared to a ‘Ferrari’. Never before have so many red and white jerseys piled into one stadium. Some arrived in body paint, others in traditional dress. There were even a few Russian fans in Cossack hats, despite temperatures hitting 30°C before the early sun set. They flooded out of the metro station and guzzled 1,000 yen — (£7.40) — pints of lager before sitting through a traditional opening ceremony. The crowd played their part, but the players struggled to follow suit inside a vacuum of pressure and Russian resilience. Their game was littered with handling errors, such as a sloppy drop by William Tupou under the high ball, which gifted the opening try to Russia winger Kirill Golosnitskiy after five minutes. Japan’s intent was clear — to keep the ball in play to tire out Russia — but their execution was poor. The host nation have signalled their intent to reach the quarter-finals but they must step things up to stand any chance of winning their remaining pool games. No doubt, there is more to come. Matsushima scored his first try after collecting Timothy Lafaele’s glorious backdoor offload, while his second came from another improvised pass from Ryoto Nakamura. Yu Tamura edged his team further ahead with an early second-half penalty, before Pieter Labuschagne stripped Andrey Ostrikov and ran 55 metres to score the third try. Japan needed calm heads, so sent on some of their veterans from the 2015 Brighton miracle. And they ended the game with breathing space. Matsushima completed his hat-trick off a hacked clearance kick to seal a bonus point win which sent the local crowd home happy.