

The seventh edition of the Rugby World Cup has been given a timely shot in the arm by the early performances of the so-called minnows of the sport.

Tonga got it going by man-handling the All Blacks pack for a 15-minute period in the second half of Friday’s opening match at Auckland’s Eden Park.

Then Romania, Namibia and Japan all punched well above their weight in Saturday’s action before losing late to, respectively, Scotland, Fiji and France.

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It was all enough to put a smile on the faces of rugby’s officials who have been panned in the past for allowing the smaller nations into their showpiece event only for them to be torn apart.

Examples of this were Australia’s 142-0 hammering of Namibia in 2003 and New Zealand’s 145-17 shellacking of Japan in 1995.

It was a very different story on Saturday as Japan badly rattled fourth-ranked France before losing 47-21 and Namibia held their own for most of the match against Fiji before going down 49-25.

Japan even got to within four points of France approaching the 60-minute mark and came close to scoring a go-ahead try.

New Zealand-born coach John Kirwin said that the earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan in March had made his players all the more determined to leave their mark on the tournament.

“It was important for us to play well and show the world that we are a very competent football team, that we could phases together and we could attack and defend for long periods of time,” he said.



“We’ve been working very hard to come to this World Cup and it was really pleasing that we stayed under the radar and tonight’s about exploding on to the scene and making sure we play to our level.

“That will help us tonight. We’ll take confidence out of that, we’ll study the game tonight and we will be disappointed tomorrow because there were times when we could have done a lot more.”

The Japanese effort brought fullsome praise from the French skipper Thierry Dusautoir.

“They played a beautiful rugby, a dynamic rugby. The public loved them and they gave us a hard time. We can only congratulate them,” he said.

Namibia led early against Fiji, who reached the quarter-finals four years ago and even gave eventual winners South Africa a good run for their money.

The Pacific Islanders fleetness of foot, however, eventually proved too much for the south Africans to handle.

The nearest to pulling off an upset turned out to be Romania who led Scotland with six minutes to go before two Simon Danielli tries turned the tide.

That compared to a 47-0 thumping they took from the Scots four years ago in France and it was a source of great pride for Romania’s Kiwi-born technical coach Steve McDowall.



“The expectation was to be competitive and we certainly were,” he said.

“One, it was physically hard; and two, it was mentally hard so for those boys it was a great lesson.”

It now remains to be seen if the trend for more competitive games will continue on Sunday with the United States taking on Ireland, and then Georgia and World Cup debutants Russia make their starts to the tournament next week.