The hope was that they would physically hammer the hosts, and they did come out on top, but it took an hour to break them down. But they built a score and in a game of fine margins and stubborn play, it was sensible stuff from the South Africans.

Japan have been incredible in this world Cup and no matter what come out of the tournament with credit, but their race was run and it felt at times during this game that they were sprinting to stand still. For all the movement and hard carries, South Africa soaked it up and rebounded the energy back on the Japanese.

The first Springboks try came straight off first phase at set-piece time as Faf de Klerk fed Makazole Mapimpi. The wing shoved a hand-off at Yu Tamura, created the space and powered to the line.

It will be mentioned in the coming days that South Africa could have been down to 14 men for the duration of the game, had the officials decided that Tendai Mtawarira’s tip tackle on opposite number Keita Inagaki at the ten-minute mark was more malicious than just a yellow-card. Wayne Barnes opted only to go for a sin-binning, though, and the hosts could only Related: Should Tendai Mtawarira have gotten a red card?

There were plenty of kicks and more than a few knock-ons during a period of harem-scarem stuff and Lukhanyo Am butchered a certain score, but South Africa were happy to bide their time.

Handre Pollard chipped away with penalty kicks and when Faf de Klerk was sent racing through for a second try off the back of a scary-strong maul, the Japanese resolve was gone.

They have been a breath of fresh air all tournament, keeping us all guessing and hitting every run as hard as humanly possible. But the counter-attacking game of South Africa relished in that. Mapimpi’s second try was testament to this. Captain Siya Kolisi went in hard on a ball-carrying Asaeli Ai Valu and from the spilled ball. Pollard hit Willie le Roux and the full-back checked it off to his back-three mate. The lethal Mapimpi was set free again. He bounced away down the touchline, scoring to make it 21 unanswered points for the Boks.

Japan stuck at it but this was as clinical as it gets.

Sunday was a nervy old day, but the South Africans wilkl be confident heading into their semi with Wales.

Sometimes you have to appreciate the numbers. Mapimipi is now joint-top try scorer in this competition, with five scores, and he looked dangerous every time he touched the ball.

For all the physical exertions of the pack, Mapimpi did as much as anyone to suck defenders in and he looks hungry.Handre Pollard deserves credit for guiding his Boks side through this one calmly, and 11 points is a solid showing – he kept the scoreboard ticking over. But in a game all about control, the brief moments of excitement Mapimpi created are worth a nod.

The Reaction

Japan coach Jamie Joseph: “At half-time the boys were a bit down there were a few niggles in our group, but, at the end of the day, I am just so proud of my team – the courage, the tenacity the sheer determination those last two tackles show just how tight a group we are and I really must take my hat off to the team.”

“Secondly, I’d really like to thank the fans. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have the support of the whole country, they have been absolutely marvelous.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved at the World Cup, we’ll accept that, we’ll enjoy that a little later on but I’m really disappointed for the players because they give so much to the group and they give so much to the country at this World Cup, I’m just a little disappointed.”

South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus: “We’ve come a bit but we want to try and go all the way. Now we’ve got Wales they are ranked higher than us and they got a win against France this weekend, we’ll start tomorrow on them, but we’ll enjoy tonight and we know the next two weeks will be tough.”