What next as we look to last-eight rugby World Cup battle

The national team’s performances also gave the country a timely shot in the arm after they had looked in danger of losing their hosting rights for the 2019 World Cup.

But the impressive Goromaru notched another penalty late on to ensure America ended the tournament without a win, while Japan became the first team ever to win three pool games and not make it through to the quarter-finals. And when you play against teams with key players, you do your damnedest to make sure they’re quiet, not involved in the game and certainly not scoring points.

“So to win three of four games shows the quality of players we have, and how hard we’ve worked to achieve this”. As I said to the players, they’ve set a really high standard of rugby over this tournament and I’m really looking forward to getting in there and maintaining that standard.

He expected the All Blacks to play a more territory-based game plan now they were into the knockout stages of the tournaments.

“Our older rugby players were truly privileged to attend a training session with the six coaches from the Japanese team, including head coach Eddie Jones”.

The other quarterfinals are: Australia vs. Scotland, South Africa vs. Wales, and Ireland vs. Argentina.

“I have played 11 or 12 times against the All Blacks and not once was I in the favourites, but that did not stop France from beating them”, he said. Thirty million is the whole of Australia’s population plus all the kangeroos, plus New Zealand and all their sheep. “The players deserve all the credit, they were absolutely fantastic today”, said Jones.

“These guys are heroes now, and when you have heroes, you want to emulate them”.

But despite the loss of England from this World Cup, organisers have hailed the tournament as the “greatest to date” with 2.41m tickets sold and 750,000 people attending fan zones.

The team’s captain Michael Leitch, 27, described the three wins as “a significant step for Japanese rugby”. The victory did wonders for the sport in Japan, who will host the next World Cup in 2019.

England’s defeat to Wales and Ireland’s victory over France were particularly attritional, but World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper insists the attention on those games has led to the belief that the injury rate has increased.

England aside, the best eight teams have won through to the quarter-finals to be held in London and Cardiff this weekend. With all the ball and camped inside the Aussies’ 22, not only did Wales turn down a couple of kicks at goal, they also made a few poor decisions with their running lines heading into traffic, instead of having the guts to go out wide where there was plenty of space.

With 40 games done and dusted, it’s time to look at what we learned from the pool games, and what we can expect from here.

He will join the Stormers for the start of the Super Rugby season but has been linked to the England top job with Stuart Lancaster nearly certain to depart following a calamitous campaign.

Asked about the possibility of managing England, he said he was brought up with good manners.