South Africa have been savaged by their local media after Karne Hesketh crossed in injury time to hand Japan the most unlikeliest of wins, having lost their 18 previous World Cup fixtures.
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Former Wallabies mentor Eddie Jones has masterminded the most stunning result in Rugby World Cup history, guiding Japan to an incredible upset of heavyweights South Africa.
“One thing about the Japanese is that they’ve always been very disciplined, (Japan coach) Eddie Jones will see to that”, Tolkin said.
“We were more than courageous today, we kept sticking in there and not letting go”, said Jones who also praised the courage of skippeer Leitch in going for the decisive try. “That’s got to go down as one of the greatest games in World Cup history”.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Japan’s victory but we have to take ownership of this performance and make ourselves accountable”.
The Springboks, 1/500 certainties beforehand, were undone by 24 points from fullback Ayumu Goromaru and the extraordinary courage of the 66/1 underdogs.
Georgia held off a resurgent Tongan outfit to win just their third World Cup game 17-10.
Jones quipped after the victory that he was too old at 55 still to be coaching, and reaching the quarter-finals would allow him to retire and be like Clive Woodward sitting in the comfort of a studio. We have worked extremely hard, all the coaching staff and the players, but it was a full-on team effort.
The match swung back again to the Springboks when replacement hooker Adriaan Strauss broke through the Japanese centre to score their bonus point fourth try.
After a disappointing Rugby Championship campaign last month where South Africa finished last, the pressure is now on for coach Heyneke Meyer to arrest the team’s slump in form. I’m 55. I should be in Barbados watching cricket.
“So this win has built an enormous amount of interest back there, so we’ve just got to build on that now, starting with our next game against Scotland“.
Following the 34-32 win in England over-night, Auckland Trade Me user “arsenalboy” posted his national team rugby jumper on the site with the heading: “South African rugby jersey”.
“It was a below-par performance and not good enough by our standards”, Springbok captain Jean de Villiers said.
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“I have to apologise to the nation”, he told reporters.
