Match 14 -- Japan v. Samoa

Thursday, 28 September 2023

My 14th match, and the 26th of the tournament, was Japan v. Samoa in Toulouse.

Japan and Samoa are 13th and 12th in the world rugby rankings, so this ought to be a good match. I walked from my hotel to the Rugby Village, where I got the flags of Japan and Samoa painted on my face. While in line for that I talked to a group of four guys from Spain. I think they said they were from near Barcelona. Two of them were Samoa supporters, and two were decked out in Japan gear. It was fun talking to them for a few minutes.

I then walked from the Rugby Village to the stadium. A bit more of a bottleneck than usual at the security screening. They have women to frisk women, and men for men. Rather than having them at roughly every other position like other stadiums have done, they had all the women to one side and all the men to the other. But you couldn't tell this while approaching, so a lot of people got very near the front of the lines and then had to shuffle sideways quite a ways.

I didn't get a photo of the outside of the stadium, but I did get one of the full moon over the crowd

I had no trouble finding my seat. It was as close as yesterday's was far away. This one was in the fifth row, at about what the US would call the 40-yard line. The way the space between the first row and the field was arranged, this felt much closer than the fifth-row seat at England v. Chile. 

Great seat

Even the refs need to warm up

National anthems

Most of the photos of the haka are very out of focus. This is the least-bad one

Japan got out to a lead, but Samoa closed to with 17-8 at halftime. A red card to Samoa's Ben Lam early in the second half meant that Japan would have a one-man advantage for the final 33 minutes of the match. That's hard to overcome, but Samoa scored two tries in the last fifteen minutes (66th and 78th minutes) to get to within 6, at 28-22. They then had some good possession in the last two minutes, but Japan got the ball just as time was expiring and kicked it out of bounds to end the match. That's a bonus point for Samoa for a loss by fewer than seven points. It might not be enough to get them into the top two in their pool (to advance to the quarterfinals) but if it gets them in the top three, it's an automatic qualification for the next World Cup.

A lineout close to me

 

A nearby scrum

Another nearby lineout

Body language tells the story

There was a couple in the row behind me dressed in kimonos. A roving cameraman took a liking to them and filmed [yeah, it's not really film, but I'm struggling to come up with appropriate wording] them celebrating after a Japan score. It was put up on the big screen and you could see the top of my head!

The kimono couple after the match

An approximation of what the big screen looked like after one of Japan's scores

The kimono guy was a big fan of the refs and got selfies with at least two of them. That's Ben O'Keeffe mostly upright, and Jaco Peyper hunched over

I took two plastic cups in to the refund tent for two euros each, then it was about fifteen minutes to walk to the Metro station and twenty more waiting in line. Back at the hotel an hour after the match ended. Not too bad. I think Toulouse does it about as well as any city.

...doug