So, one home nation made it. England will play South Africa in the World Cup final next Saturday, after Wales were edged out 19-16 in a gut-wrenchingly tense second semi-final, settled, in the end, by a penalty kick in the 76th minute. It will be a rerun of the 2007 final, which was also the last time England made it this far in the tournament, and that year they were beaten. England’s head coach, Eddie Jones, watched South Africa from the grandstand, assiduously taking notes on the strengths and weaknesses of the team his side need to beat if this year’s going to be any different.
England’s fans out in Japan seem pretty sure it will be, but then thrashing the All Blacks 19-7 does wonders for your confidence. And yesterday, they were all over the place anyway, trying to find their feet after having their world turned upside down the previous evening. “We All-Blacked the All Blacks”, said James Howarth, from Kent. “It was practically perfect rugby.”
Howarth was sitting in the wheelchair section, alongside a New Zealander. “He burst into tears at the final whistle, so I ended up having to console him. I told him – welcome to our world.”
“My wife won’t thank me for saying this,’ said Howarth’s friend, Nigel Makin, “but we both have children, and we agreed afterwards that it was the best day of our lives, it was just utterly magical from start to finish.” He was still recovering from a rare hangover. “I don’t usually drink,” he said, “but I had to last night.”
David Bromley, on the other hand, was so shocked that he was off his beer. “I was so emotionally exhausted that I just didn’t feel like drinking afterwards,” he said. “I was so sure they were going to blow it, because I’ve seen them do it so many times before.” England led the All Blacks 15-0 the last time they played them, at Twickenham in November, and ended up losing by a point. David and his son Dan live in Singapore and had stopped off in Tokyo on a conveniently organised layover on the way back from a holiday in the USA. They had paid three-times face value for their semi-final tickets, and were busy planning how to extend their stay by another week.
“My phone’s been buzzing all morning with messages from friends back home telling me they’re trying to book flights now and asking if I can help them sort out tickets for the final,” Dan said. “I’ve been telling them I haven’t even got my own yet.” The latest prices show the top-end ones are going for around £6,000. They’re banking on there being a few returns from disconsolate New Zealanders.
Noel Clarke and Rebecca Jolley had come over from New Jersey. “It still feels so surreal,” Noel said. “Once we got over the first shock, we were sort of wandering Tokyo around feeling utterly bemused. We ended up in a McDonalds, of all places, and we were sort of staring out at this empty shopping mall thinking ‘that didn’t just happen’.”
In the end they decided they had to check if it really did, so went back to their hotel to see if they could watch the game again on Japanese TV. It wasn’t on, so they had to wait till Sunday. “We watched it again first thing this morning.”
“It was just as incredible the second time,” Rebecca said, “right from the very start, when they lined up to face the Haka, it gave me goosebumps all over again.” The one thing they all agreed on was that if their team can play anything like that well again, it didn’t much matter who they face in the final.
Jones has admitted he had two-and-a-half years to prepare for that match against the All Blacks: he’d known it could be coming ever since they made the draw back in May 2017. But he and his team have only got a week to figure out how to beat South Africa, who are as stubborn and tough as they come. Wales found out all about that in a match that felt, for long stretches, like watching 15 desperate men try to tear a hole in a granite slab with their bare hands.
And beating New Zealand didn’t do much good for the last three teams who managed it in a World Cup. France did it in 1999, then lost in the final, and again in 2007, when they were knocked out in the semis. Australia managed it in 2003, and then lost to England. Australia’s coach then was Jones.
All those England fans will be hoping he learned enough about what went wrong to put it right all these years later.
