JAPAN coach Eddie Jones, whose team play Scotland on Wednesday, last night warned there is a lot more to come from them after their extraordinary 34-32 win over South Africa in Brighton. The Japanese, who had only ever previously won one match in the Rugby World Cup, against Zimbabwe in 1991, have little time to recover from the exertion and exhilaration of yesterday’s result before their Pool B game against the Scots. But Jones is confident they will be ready for another big performance.
“I said we had two aims - to reach the quarter-finals and to be the team of the tournament,” Jones said after his team had stunned the two-time world champions. “To do that we’ve got to back it up against Scotland in four days.
“That’s the schedule: we’ve known about it for two years. There’s no moaning from us. Japanese players can keep rolling it out. It’s not unusual for them to back up. It’s going to be tough, because Scotland are going to be up for the game.”
When the Springboks ran in a couple of tries around the hour mark, Jones admitted he had feared the worst. But he was immensely proud of the character shown by his team, above all when they opted not to kick a late penalty that would have given them the draw, instead keeping play alive and eventually scoring a dramatic 84th-minute winner.
“It’s like a horror movie, when the woman goes for a shower and you know what’s going to happen next,” he said. “But today we were more than brave. We stuck at it, and the courage at the end to go for the try when we could have gone for the three points and a draw was fantastic.
“Our target is to reach the quarter-finals, and then I can retire, sit back and criticise, like people like Clive Woodward. We made a splash today, but to make a real dent in this tournament, we need to back it up against Scotland.”
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