“I don’t think you can stay angry for too long”, said Du Plessis, who was a member of the Springbok side that won the 2007 World Cup. “They played well, they deserved to win today”.
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“You look at everything involved in rugby and really you need a six-day turnaround”.
He said they “scored at least two tries off our turnovers and intercept passes”. “I thought there were good parts of our game, there’s things we still need to work on. They have a good squad, and there will be no complacency from our side”.
Center Mark Bennett led the way with two, while flanker John Hardie, right winger Tommy Seymour, and flyhalf Finn Russell got the others.
“We’re a fit team”. They get outscored consistently in the second half.
Sekope Kepu, plus 13 points from the boot of Bernard Foley, proved enough for the Wallabies in their Pool A game against the Pacific Islanders.
Japan will seek a second famous World Cup scalp when they take on Scotland on Wednesday, when Australia will unleash their “jackals” in their first game. That’s not something we targeted at the start of the game, because it was just about getting the win.
“They’ve got a good young team coming through”.
The verbal sparring between Jones and Scotland coach Vern Cotter has added a nice sidebar to the occasion but that won’t influence what happens on the pitch. “Just hold the ball”. They were starting to blow and we were putting them under pressure.
“I wouldn’t say it was convincing”, Cotter said of the win. “We were nervous at the start”. Joseph’s Bath teammate Sam Burgess is likely to come into the team in his absence. “We’ll make decisions based on that”.
The reason for that is there are clearly different circumstances when it comes to four-day turnarounds.
“They pride themselves on their physical approach”.
That shell was nowhere in sight in their historic win over South Africa. “Hell, yes. We’ll run their legs off”.
Japan has 10 days off until its next Pool B game against Samoa at Milton Keynes.
“Their overall game spoke volumes for their intentions in this World Cup“. If we don’t we have no chance.
South Africa brought back big guns such as Willie le Roux and Duane Vermeulen to tackle Samoa on Saturday in eight changes to the team beaten by Japan.
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“We will be focusing on recovery, trying to regenerate energy levels and get ourselves focused for a physical team that has had a whole week to prepare”.
