2015 Rugby World Cup: Japan beat Samoa at Milton Keynes
JAPAN kept alive its chances of reaching the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals with a comprehensive 26-5 win against Samoa in their Pool B match on Sunday.
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JAPAN kept alive its chances of reaching the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals with a comprehensive 26-5 win against Samoa in their Pool B match on Sunday.
The contest was expected to be relatively even, even though Japan had beaten Manu Samoa only three times in 25 years, and taken some giant beatings.
But this was a totally one-sided affair for Japan, and at one stage it was 15 v 13 with two Samoans sin-binned.
The Japanese scored only a penalty try with conversion while they enjoyed the two-man advantage, but even with a 10-0 lead their control was unwavering against a sloppy and ill-disciplined Samoa.
“I thought our forwards were fantastic, we shut Samoa out, and our work around the set-piece and the ruck was first class,” Japan coach Eddie Jones said.
“To be able to control the set-piece against Samoa puts you in a position to win the game.”
Japan came into this tournament with only one win in Cup history.
Now it has two in this Cup.
“When we came here we had two ambitions: To reach the quarterfinals and to be the team of the tournament,” Jones said.
“If we win three games then I think we’ll be the team of the tournament.”
Following the stunning 34-32 win against South Africa on the opening weekend, Japan is eyeing a first quarterfinal berth.
It needs other results to go its way, then the Brave Blossoms will know where they stand going into the very last game of the pool stage against the United States in Gloucester.
“If we’re good enough we’ll go through. We can’t control the other stuff,” Jones said.
With fullback Ayumu Goromaru kicking clinically, and sweeping in defence, Japan absorbed Samoa’s best shots and was unlucky not to win by more.
“We haven’t played our best yet,” Jones said.
“We probably left two tries out there today, and that was the disappointing thing, but we’ve got the USA next so hopefully we will then.”
The only sour note was an apparent head injury to right winger Akihito Yamada, the scorer of Japan’s second try.
He went off early in the second half after taking a knee to the head when making a wraparound tackle on centre Paul Perez.
He lay motionless for several minutes, and taken away on a stretcher.
“He looks all right, mate. He might be in line for an academy award,” Jones said with his typically dry humour.
“No, he got knocked out, it looks like he’s OK now. We’ll do the appropriate protocol, and it looks like he should be fine for our next game.”
It took Samoa 63 minutes to score.
Following a turnover inside Samoa’s 22, a fine sweeping move was finished emphatically by Perez in the left corner.
A Stadium MK rugby-record crowd of 29,000 could hardly believe their eyes as Japan reached halftime 20-0 up.
“We’ve certainly picked up a lot of neutral fans,” Jones said.
“This is a fantastic stadium to play rugby in.”
Manu Samoa contributed to their downfall.
No 8 Faifili Levave was penalised for a late shoulder charge in the 16th minute, and referee Craig Joubert sent prop Sakaria Taulafo to the sin bin in the 19th after Samoa conceded two defensive penalties in two minutes.
Samoa defended brilliantly with 13 men, holding up Japan six times, but the penalty try was almost inevitable.
Goromau added two penalties as he bounced back from a poor kicking performance in a 45-10 loss to Scotland last week.
Right on the first-half hooter, Yamada dived into the right corner, and Goromaru nailed a difficult conversion from wide right.
Goromaru’s first penalty after the break punished Manu Samoa’s 11th penalty conceded in the match.
They would concede 17 by the end.
Goromaru’s fourth and last penalty extended his tournament-leading points tally to 45.
Their ferociously committed defence restricted Samoa to just the Perez try, the first time in 15 matches with Japan that Samoa has scored less than 10.
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Originally published as 2015 Rugby World Cup: Japan beat Samoa at Milton Keynes
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