After a magnificent, breathless match that neither team deserved to lose, Argentina are in the last eight and Japan are going home. Mateo Carreras of Newcastle scored a hat-trick as the Pumas set up a meeting with Wales, while the end of the road has arrived for Michael Leitch and his fellow surviving veterans from the Miracle of Brighton. Another classic was added to the CV of the Brave Blossoms, but it is Michael Cheika’s dangerous side who roll on to the quarter-final in Marseille on Saturday.
Tackles were missed, knock-ons proliferated and errors were committed with alarming regularity in the Nantes sunshine. But space was attacked at every opportunity and the percentage plays were uniformly ignored for high-risk, high‑excitement rugby. And isn’t that – as opposed to suffocating defence and speculative kicking – what really matters? These inspirational teams kept ball in hand and kept the crowd on their feet. The only disappointment is they cannot both be in the quarter-finals.
“We gave them a few easy entries back into the game, which was unfortunate,” Cheika said. “We’ll have to turn that around next week. So many Argentinians put away their savings to come here, and I think our boys felt that pressure.”
The tone had been set by the opening score when Japan’s scrum‑half, Naoto Saito, fell off a tackle allowing Santiago Chocobares to burst through. Saito’s spectacular kick from hand, gathered by the full‑back Lomano Lemeki, promptly had the Pumas back-pedalling before a sensational score by Amato Fakatava who popped up in space on the left. Rather than look for contact, the Japan lock chipped over the defensive cover, snaffled his own kick, cut inside and loped across the tryline to touch down.
The match’s gathering momentum slowed briefly when Japan’s Pieter Labuschagné was shown a yellow card for a high hit on Thomas Gallo. The foul-play review officer decided there was mitigation – it stayed a yellow card – and Emiliano Boffelli missed the resulting penalty.
Rikiya Matsuda’s drop goal attempt was bravely charged down by the openside flanker Marcos Kremer and in a silky Argentina counterattack the ball moved through the hands of Julián Montoya and Juan Cruz Mallía, before Mateo Carreras sprinted over. Boffelli snatched at the conversion, although the wing soon found his range with a penalty.
Japan had shipped eight points in Labuschagne’s absence, but hit back in familiarly thrilling fashion. In a gliding run down the left Siosaia Fifita stepped inside the cover and offloaded for Saito, whose dive over the line prompted boisterous celebrations under the posts. Matsuda clipped the conversion and it was perfectly poised at half-time, Cheika’s side leading by a point at 15-14.
After some gritty defensive work by Montoya won a penalty for the Pumas, Mateo Carreras capitalised on a big overlap for his second try. Japan, of course, were unbowed and swiftly had the Pumas under pressure again, Matsuda’s penalty reducing the deficit to five after another well‑structured attack. Lemeki clearly felt an extra layer of excitement and intrigue was required, and nonchalantly belted over a long-range drop goal to shave Argentina’s lead to two.
The Pumas counterpunched when Mallía sent Boffelli haring over in the corner, following a lovely offload by Chocobares, and the try-scorer’s conversion bounced in off a post. It was 29-20 moving into the final quarter, and Japan came out swinging, Fifita’s muscular carry setting up another assault on the line.
Argentina initially held firm but after a tap penalty the replacement wing Jone Naikabula nipped over and Matsuda’s conversion made it a two-point game. The Japanese fans – all the fans – were in raptures by this point.
Defensive indiscipline would cost Japan again. Mateo Carreras capitalised on more slackness to seal his hat-trick, and when the replacement Nicolás Sánchez added the conversion and a penalty, Japan had too much to do.
“My job over the last seven years was not only to coach the team but also to develop the game,” Japan’s outgoing head coach, Jamie Joseph, said. “The first four years was about performing and selling a home Rugby World Cup, and we got a tick for that. The last four years have been more difficult, but I’m proud of the team and I’m proud of my coaching team.”
Argentina are set to be without their influential blindside flanker, Pablo Matera, for next week and beyond after he was forced off with a hamstring injury in the first half. “It doesn’t look good,” Cheika said. “By the look of him now, I would say definitely it [the tournament] would be over.” Anticipating the collision with Wales, Cheika added: “I think what changes now is the mentality. Maybe we can just chill out and go for it, play some good footy, and we’ll see where the cards fall.”
