Rugby: Portugal gave Japan strong response in private game | rugby
The Portuguese rugby team came very close to making history and surprising Japan, ranked 10th in the world rankings, but lost 25-38, a difference of 13 points that does not faithfully reflect the events.
Is that when Ryohei Yamanaka (80 + 1) made the fourth test of the Japanese, already in compensation period, Portugal was like “a fish in the water” looking for a test that would allow the inverter the disadvantage, which was only six points when the timer exceeded 80 minutes.
Pushed by “close to 11,000 spectators”, announced in the sound installation at Estádio Cidade de Coimbra, the “wolves” played fast and hand, looking for a space in the opposing defense that would allow them to surprise the rugby world, like the Japanese themselves. made to South Africa in Mundial2015, when they did not belong to the “Tier 1”.
However, an error in a pass along the common line to the Japanese defender intercepting the ball and running for about 60 meters to deal a hard blow to the ambition of the “wolves”, who left Coimbra cheered for the reply given to one of the best teams in the world.
Japan, as expected, had territorial domination from the start and, after 4 minutes, Siosaia Fifita made the first rehearsal of the night, but a Portuguese team did not acknowledge the blow and continued to follow their game plan, which it passed for printing speed, by hand, in the liberal times when it had the ball.
In this way, he was able to conquer some fouls and Samuel Marques (17) reduced to 3-5, in a penalty kick, five minutes before quickly taking another penalty, coming out to play by hand, to offer the test to José Lima (23 ), which put Portugal in front of the scoreboard.
The game was then discussed with Japan kicks to the posts, with the move forward with kicks from Rikiya Matsuda (27, 32 and 26) and Samuel Marques (38) reduced it to 11-14, but the The last “Word” of the first half belonged to Shogo Nakano (40), who took advantage of a gap in the Portuguese defense to make the second test for Japan and take the team to rest, winning by 11-21.
After the rest, Mike Tadjer (45) did a rehearsal of “mallet”Dynamic, once a difficulty of the “wolves”, today a weapon used several times to try to reach the rehearsal against Japan, but Kazuki Himno (53), with a goal touch transformed by Rikiya Matsuda, reset the distances in 18-28 , after a loss of the ball in an alignment of the Portuguese introduction.
Then, João Granate (60), in a “catch and go” after another dynamic “maul” in the last five Japanese meters, replaced Portugal “in” the result (25-28 after Samuel Marques transformation), and not even a penalty of Matsuda (63) took the “wolves” out of this discussion.
A yellow card given to Isilei Nakjima (76) for persisting in the foul caused the Japanese to be outnumbered for the last few minutes and excited the team coached by Patrice Lagisquet to take on the opponent, in a victory that Portugal deserved , but that ended up not arriving.