By far my favorite rugby rivalry of all time is one that really began 835 days before the 2015 Rugby World Cup hosted by England. Eddie Jones, then the coach of Japan, the least successful team in Rugby World Cup history, was sitting next to his advisor, JR, the manager of the Japan Rugby Football Union. JR reached for the phone the second it rang and two seconds into the call, the blood rushed from his face. He said, "okay" and hung up the phone, he turned to Eddie and said the name of the most successful rugby team of all time. They would be playing the South Africa Springboks in the opening game of the World Cup.
After hearing this Eddie pushed his team's limits. Each day included more training than a typical week before Eddie. It got to the point where the team was threatening to quit because they argued that Eddie was literally killing them while he sat in a cushioned chair and watched.
Then Eddie had a stroke.
It was a shock to everyone on the team, Michael Leitch in particular. The new team captain put forth more work than ever. He spent time with Eddie to learn from him. Within the week, Eddie had put in so much work against the wishes of his doctor that he progressed a month's worth of average patient progression. And his team took notice. After this, constant hard work became the norm. Everyone wanted to prove that they had the guts and grind that Eddie did.
All of that hard work was brought to trial on September 19, 2015. Japan was expected to com out of the world cup on the bottom. The only reason Japan was at the world cup is because they were the best team in Asia and they needed the diversity. They were little more than a filler team.
South Africa was expected to come out on top of the whole world cup. They were huge, over a hundred pounds heavier of pure muscle than the Japanese team. South Africa had never lost to any team other than the big tier one nations in a world cup, they were consistently the best.
When Japan stepped into the stadium, after tears during their national anthem, Japan came out guns blazing. The average time between a tackle and a new phase is usually 4 seconds, Japan cut that down to 1.4 seconds. They were incredibly fast.
Despite South Africa's best efforts, Japan kept up with them each moment of the game. When the clock hit 80 minutes, Japan was down by three points, they could have tied up the game with almost no risk by kicking a field goal, ending the game in a draw. But they took the far riskier path and attempted the try.
After 10 minutes of phases from the Japan side, somehow holding on to the ball, Japan squeaked past the giants across from them, and scored a try, beating the Springboks in the biggest upset in Rugby World Cup history and arguably in all of sports history.
Now in the end that's a great story, but it is more than that, it is the beginnings of one of the most unexpected rivalries in rugby. Since then every game between Japan and South Africa has been so heated, so close and so fueled by this rivalry. Any game between Japan and South Africa is worth watching because they simply have a rivalry that is so powerful. All this because Japan brought the Springboks to tears 6 years ago.
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