In terms of what to expect from the game itself, the banner in the stands at Wembley Stadium just about said it all – “2015 Never Again!”
Regardless of how much Japan coach Eddie Jones – rugby’s enduring answer to Jose Mourinho – tried to talk up the spirit of the Miracle of Brighton, when his team famously upset South Africa in their 2015 World Cup opener, the days of the Springboks getting caught out like that again are well and truly over.
Going into Saturday’s clash at the Home of Football, the Boks had squashed the David and Goliath beef between them and Japan by comprehensively beating the then World Cup hosts twice before and during the tournament in 2019.
Japan running a second string Wallaby side close last weekend gave Jones a glint in the eye below that infamously raised eyebrow, but 61-7 in the back-to-back World Champions and Rugby Championship champs was representative of the current gulf between the two sides.
So, the Bok objectives going into the match – organised as a glorified hitout with the revenge Test against France in Paris next Saturday – may have been aplenty, but victory was probably closer to the bottom of the priority list, on account of it being somewhat expected against a team ranked 13th in the world with four wins and three defeats to its credit this year.
FIRST TAKE | Boks tick off France prep goals in 60-point win over Japan
Apart from said warm-up for the anticipated war against a French side still collectively frothing at the mouth with its compatriots at the perceived injustice of its one-point defeat in the 2023 World Cup quarterfinal, there were a lot of things Rassie Erasmus wanted to see in a nine tries to one performance which was slow burn in the rain under the open Wembley roof.
The other points to the showing for the Bok coaches were game time for the Japan-based players – who had not played since the conclusion of the Rugby Championship – time back on the field for players returning from injury like Kurt-Lee Arendse and Gerhard Steenekamp, a chance to blood new talent like Zach Porthen and an opportunity for the players to get game time together to get the “Tony Ball” cohesion going again.
And with the finicky nature of hamstring injuries, they may have also wanted to see what their fullback options were should Damian Willemse not recover in time to return to the scene of his iconic scrum call two years ago.
Looking back at the entire 80 minutes of the game, the heavens opening up during the national anthems were as much a leveller for the Brave Blossoms as they bestowed an advantage to the Boks.
On the one hand, the pouring rain meant the Boks’ Tony Ball would be in inconsistent supply, but it also meant that their army tank set piece straight from the movie Fury would come to the fore against a team hoping to run them off their feet with up tempo play and lengthy ball-in-play.
And so the rolling maul – which yielded captain Siya Kolisi’s opener and a penalty try – and the scrum, even with South Africa’s youngest debutant at tighthead prop (Porthen, 21), were the weapons of choice in a first half in which the Boks played as if they were building an innings.
The other two first half tries were typical individual brilliance efforts by you know who (Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu), who seemed to find the hybrid Wembley pitch to be playing like a bone-dry surface.
The first was from a kick where he chased his own up and under and was first to react and snatch the loose ball to canter over when Japan made a mess of fielding it, before outflanking lock Jack Cornelsen to run all the way when nothing seemed to be on.
As usual, Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s performance had running metres running off the page and beaten defenders trailing in its wake, but it was his defence, the control he exhibited in a first half in which his boot was needed to get his forwards downfield.
The bloody nose he sported in the first half dropped broad hints as to the showing being more substance than flash.
For their part, Japan – suffering at set piece and victims of armed robbery at the breakdown to the usual and unusual duo of Malcolm Marx and Jasper Wiese, respectively – struggled to get their game going.
While they did eventually get some consistent ball in the second quarter, a combination of the Boks’ defence, the rain and their skills failing them meant they couldn’t ratchet up the intensity on the world champions.
As a result, Jones already had a thousand yard stare by the half-hour mark, with the coaches box desk taking a pounding and the vocal chords being cleared (he uttered something which rhymed with truck when the cameras caught him).
The two yellow cards to tighthead prop Shuhei Takeuchi and blindside flanker Ben Gunter won’t have helped, with Japan also coming off second best in the exchanges in the air.
Former captain Michael Leitch, now 37, may have looked as retro as his age with his 90s nose strip, but he fought a lone battle in the collisions, with his successor as skipper Warner Dearns putting in a mountain of work and 21-year-old fullback Yoshitaka Yazaki’s liquorice all sorts performance still doing enough to suggest Japan have a live one in their try only scorer on the night.
Looking at the Boks’ aforementioned objectives, most of the answers were answered, but the rest can only be answered in the Paris cauldron and under the white-hot pressure that only playing against France can provide.
The Japan-based players – all nine of them if you include the recently returned Arendse – got their full canter, Tony Ball gradually got a foothold in the game as the Boks followed up a 26-0 halftime score with another 35 points in the second half, while injury returnees Arendse and Steenekamp had really good outings.
Arendse was slow to start with as the ball didn’t go his way in the first half, but had a busy enough second half to be voted player of the match, with two tries, a breakdown steal and an assist for Jesse Kriel.
Steenekamp – in early due to Nche’s injury – was typically strong in the scrum and workaholic on the carry and in defence.
Young Porthen had the nearest thing to an armchair ride a prop will ever have in a rugby game against an overmatched Japanese scrum, but he likes a clean and a dominant tackle.
Kolbe at fullback was an assortment of overcooked kick-passes, knocked-on tip-on passes and the sheer brilliance which saw him bust through a double hit and set up Arendse’s second try with a kick-ahead afterwards.
There were also what you would call optional extras in terms of what the Bok fans wanted to see from the match.
Big Wilco Louw’s first Bok try was just what the doctor ordered, as well as Andre Esterhuizen’s first score as an openside flanker (after replacing Siya Kolisi), Kriel scoring 100 points from 20 tries was just reward from the last of the great triers, while Manie Libbok’s left-footed up-and-unders were something the rugby public didn’t know it needed.
If there was a concern from the Boks from the match with France in mind, it would have been the sight of destructive loosehead prop Ox Nche limping off in the 19th minute with what looked like an ankle injury, while winger Ethan Hooker went off for an HIA (Head Injury Assessment) and didn’t return in the second half.
The availability of those two will form part of the many headaches they will have to deal with when putting together a team to play France next weekend.
With Steenekamp having just returned as his backup, Nche will be the tougher to replace, while Hooker’s absence – if it comes to it – could be assuaged by Willemse’s return at fullback, with Kolbe returning to right wing.
Lock will be an interesting conundrum to solve for Erasmus and co.
Eben Etzebeth, who wasn’t in the matchday 23, and Lood de Jager are the most experienced pairing, but De Jager and RG Snyman’s reprisal of their Bulls days playing together was so effective that the coaches wouldn’t be human if they weren’t tempted to continue with a combination that has only played together three times for the Boks.
De Jager was the Boks’ go-to guy and contester in the lineout, throwing in 20 tackles – the most in the match – in the process, while Snyman was iron fist with his physicality and velvet glove with his ridiculously accurate offloading with three people hanging off him.
Franco Mostert looked like himself the most he has in recent matches, but with Pieter-Steph du Toit waiting in the wings, would they really go for someone else at blindside flank?
And would anyone deny Kolisi – who was lively to the second ball and mopping up for the Boks against Japan – his 100th Test against France?
There were 61-7 reasons to feel like the Boks ticked most of the right boxes against Japan.
But Japan simply didn’t ask the right physicality, intensity and tempo questions of the Boks, queries that will be in abundance at 22.10 next Saturday.
