Rampant Boks crush Japan to warm up for France and excorcise ghosts of Brighton

The Springboks kicked off their end-of-season tour with an emphatic 61-7 defeat of Japan in London, while firing a warning shot to next week’s opponents, France.

Japan coach Eddie Jones' hope of emulating his team's 2015 defeat at the 2015 World Cup was dashed from the outset.

Coach Rassie Erasmus arranged this out-of-international window match as a warm-up for the crunch clash against a France team bent on revenge for their World Cup quarter-final defeat.

The teams have not played each other since that dramatic one-point win for the South Africans.

The heavy rain that poured down not long after kick-off on Saturday at Wembley extinguished any Japanese hopes of an upset. Their coach, Eddie Jones, had been hoping for a fast-paced game in which they could avoid set pieces and wear the heavier Boks down by traversing the game from touchline to touchline.

But the wet weather meant a tighter game, and the Springboks licked their lips as they activated game plan number one — kick high and handsome and put the receiver under pressure.

The Boks were immaculate in this respect, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Cobus Reinach kicking perfectly weighted high balls onto shaky defenders.

I’m not sure how often it rains in Japanese games, but their players were awful in dealing with the Boks’ aerial bombs.

Japan’s struggle with the pressure of a tight game resulted in a flood of penalties against them,

An early penalty kicked to the corner saw Siya Kolisi rampage over for the opening score.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s pinpoint aerial hoists saw him benefit from his own expertise, with the flyhalf scoring two slickly taken tries after the opposition had dithered in response to his kicks.

There was a big worry for the Springboks when key loosehead prop Ox Nche hobbled off with a leg injury.

The Boks were tracking at a point a minute in the first 20 minutes, with the Brave Blossoms getting almost no possession.

The second quarter saw the Japanese fight back, but they could not score. Their handling in the rain was terrible.

There had not been too many scrums — the Japanese got that much of their game plan right — but when the Boks did scrum, it was mostly a penalty.

In the 35th minute, one such penalty went to the corner, and a superbly worked lineout maul was illegally stopped by the Japanese, and a penalty try was the result. There was also a yellow card for their tighthead prop.

Early in the second half, just as Japan’s first yellow card was ending, they copped another, because flank Ben Gunter went in high on Kolisi. The Japanese were back to 14 men.

At this point, the Bomb Squad was deployed, and the 14-man Japan were in serious trouble.

Just six minutes into the half, Wilco Louw bustled over after Feinberg-Mngomezulu had probed the defence and offloaded neatly to Cheslin Kolbe, who slipped the ball to the rapidly advancing Louw.

On came Andre Esterhuizen as a flank rather than a centre, and he crashed over off the back of a maul, only for it to be disallowed because of an offside ruling.

A minute later, Lood de Jager won a Japanese lineout throw, and the beneficiary was Kurt-Lee Arendse, who scored his 22nd try in his 28th Test.

As the game hit the three-quarter mark, Esterhuizen again bulldozed over once more, and this time he was not denied.

Arensde scored his second thanks to a brilliant break from the back by Kolbe, and the final say went to Jesse Kriel, who finished off powerfully after a break by Libbok.

Scorers

South Africa — Tries: Siya Kolisi, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (2), Penalty Try, Andre Esterhuizen, Kurt-Lee Arendse (2), Jesse Kriel, Cheslin Kolbe. Conversions: Feinberg-Mngomezulu (4). Manie Libbock (3).

Japan — Try: Yoshitaka Yazaki.  Conversion: Seungsin Lee