Wales waited until the sixth last minute to beat France with a try from Ross Moriarty and clinch victory by one point, winning 20-19.
ADVERTISEMENTWales waited until the sixth last minute to beat France with a try from Ross Moriarty and clinch victory by one point, winning 20-19.
The halftime score of 19-10 was extremely kind to Wales and every player in both camps would have been well aware that earlier this year France led 16-0 at halftime in Paris, but lost 24-19 as Wales completed the biggest comeback in Six Nations history.
Something similar then began to look likely when Vahaamahina turned from hero to villain as he was shown a red card after ludicrously smashing his elbow into the face of Wainwright in a maul on the Welsh line.
And South Africa beat Japan 26-3, dashing the hopes of the host nation that their side would make it into the semi-finals.
It was always going to be an enormous ask for Japan to replicate what has been their greatest moment on a rugby field — beating South Africa 34-32 in a World Cup group match in Brighton, England, four years ago.
In what was a first World Cup quarter-final for the Japanese, neither an entire nation seemingly now besotted by rugby nor a raucous 50,000 crowd packed into Tokyo Stadium, could carry the hosts to victory.
More than fifty million Japanese were estimated to have watched the match.