THE GUARDIAN



 

Japan’s media devoted copious column inches to Japan’s stunning victory over Ireland on Saturday, in a reflection of the outpouring of joy that greeted the biggest upset in Rugby World Cup history.

Sports newspapers splashed front-page headlines heralding Japan’s achievement, with Nikkan Sports devoting seven pages to the team’s feat in Shizuoka.

The paper reflected the consensus that Japan had “reaped the rewards” for their collective efforts, describing the players as “one team”. Ireland, it said, had “keeled over” in the face of the home side’s onslaught. “This is Japan,” its match report said. “This is Japanese rugby. The cherry blossoms bloomed in the autumn night sky.”

Sankei Sports led with “A shock for Ireland; a big gold star for Japan”, and singled out Kenki Fukuoka, whose 59th-minute try gave the home side the lead, as a “legend”.

There was also praise for standoff Yu Tamura, whose boot helped propel Japan towards the greatest day in the country’s rugby history – perhaps even surpassing their epic win over South Africa in Brighton in 2015.
The paper ran photographs of jubilant supporters packed into fanzones, while

the usually cautious broadsheets shrank their coverage of a scandal involving power company executives to mark the Brave Blossoms’ 19-12 win on their front pages.

The Asahi Shimbun wondered if Japan should now be considered a Tier 1 rugby nation after their win took them to eighth in the world rankings and raised the prospect of qualification for the knockout stages for the first time.

“While there are clear differences in rugby between the top tier teams and the other nations in the World Cup, Japan has now pulled off an upset over a team considered a possible title contender in its second straight World Cup,” the paper said.

Media coverage reached fever pitch inside the stadium, where 47,000 fans turned the stands into a sea of red and white. The Sports Nippon website posted a photo on Twitter of Michael Leitch, who came off the bench to replace Amanaki Mafi, holding a box filled with smartphones and voice recorders as he spoke to dozens of journalists during a post-match interview.

Leitch’s gesture “melted my heart,” the paper’s reporter wrote.
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, congratulated the team in a Twitter post. “What a huge win made possible by teamwork. Thank you for such a tremendously thrilling game.”

Daichi Suzuki, commissioner of the Japan Sports Agency, said, “This is a day that Japan will not forget. I can say the Japan team has rewritten sports history.”

There were warm words, too, from travelling Irish fans. “Sean McGouren, who watched the match at a fanzone in Tokyo, told Agence France-Presse he was “sad, but also very happy, very happy. If I have to lose, I would like to lose against Japan. Japan were very, very good, amazing today.”
The tournament’s organisers described the result as the “sensation in Shizuoka”, adding that they expected confirmation that the match attracted a record domestic TV audience for a rugby fixture and the largest live audience of the year in Japan.

The match occupied the top five trends on Twitter in Japan, while total video views on the Rugby World Cup Japanese Twitter account exceeded 8.2 million, the organisers said on their website. Match highlights on World Rugby’s YouTube channel topped one million within a matter of hours, they added. More than 120,000 people watched the match at fanzones across the country.

The chairman of World Rugby, Bill Beaumont, said the tournament was “shaping up to be something very special on and off the field. Japan’s victory has excited a nation and captured the imagination of the world with exceptional social and digital media reaction. This tournament is big in Japan.”