JAPAN LIGHT UP THE WORLD
Brave Blossoms dedicate amazing historic victory to typhoon victims
THE Rugby World Cup final will be staged in Yokohama in three weeks’ time but, as Japan were taking their ritual bows around the International Stadium to an ecstatic crowd, it felt like we had just witnessed it.
Dedicating their victory to the 33 people who lost their lives to the killer typhoon, which swept Japan 24 hours earlier, they beat Scotland in a riotous game to reach a World Cup quarterfinal for the first time. In doing so, the Brave Blossoms scaled their Mount Fuji.
They may not win this tournament, but the hosts (celebrating above) won the hearts of every neutral with blink-and-you-miss-it rugby yesterday. Scotland played their part, too, in a fabulous game with a stirring secondhalf fightback, but their reward was a plane ticket home.
At the final gong, the 67,666 crowd, which included tennis star Naomi Osaka, cast aside Japanese reserve and went bananas. On a day of national mourning rugby was only rugby, but the party going on around the Brave Blossoms represented a joyous escape.
“This was about more than just us,” said Japan captain Michael Leitch. “There were a lot of people out there who suffered from the typhoon. We were grateful for another opportunity to inspire Japan at this time when Japan needed it. And I think we showed that.
“This is great for Japanese rugby, rugby in Asia and tier-two rugby, to qualify for the quarter-finals. Now we’re shifting the goalposts. I’m not too sure who we’ve got, but we’re not coming out next week to have a good game and lose, we’re coming out to win.” It happens to be South Africa, the team they humbled at the 2015 World Cup. There was a minute’s silence before kick-off in memory of the victims of the typhoon, which had put the game in grave doubt.
Quite how Yokohama and its International Stadium were in a condition to host a game of such magnitude was difficult to compute for those who had been under siege from Typhoon Hagibis 24 hours earlier. With an earthquake thrown in as well on Saturday night, the gates of hell were opened in this part of Japan. Japanese workers had slept at the stadium overnight to secure it, mopping out an inch of floodwater from the dressing rooms, and cleaning the pitch to deliver a stage fit for such a shootout.
The game more than matched it. The Scots took the lead with an early try from Finn Russell, but spent most of the rest of the game chasing ghosts as Japan moved them around at breakneck pace.
Man-of-the-match Kenki Fukuoka scored two (bottom but one and bottom, left), and created another for Kotaro Matsushima (top left), with prop Keita Inagaki (left) touching down, too, after some tremendous build-up play.
Props WP Nel and Zander Fagerson pulled back two tries and Stuart Hogg had another ruled out for a forward pass, as the Scots threatened another Calcutta Cup-style comeback, but Japan closed ranks to see the game out.
“Scotland were brilliant but it’s the tenacity, I guess, which paid dividends for us,” said Japan coach Jamie Joseph.
Scotland coach Gregor Townsend said: “We came here with high aspirations and it’s very disappointing not to make it out of the pool.
“But Japan are in great form right now. A sign of a quality team is in seizing opportunities and they did that.”