Andy Colquhoun reports on some of the most memorable mismatches in Rugby World Cup history
Where are you now, Tsutomu Matsuda? Your name may not jostle for attention next to Francois Pienaar’s, Jonah Lomu’s or Joel Stransky’s, but as long as strong men gather in rugby clubhouses around the world, you’ll always find a minute’s silence in your memory.
Poor Matsuda had the misfortune to find the Japanese number 15 jersey hanging on his hook when the All Blacks rumbled into Bloemfontein on June 4 1995. What followed wasn’t pretty, but it was undeniably memorable. Over the next 80 or so minutes the All Blacks breezed their way to a 145- 17 victory – they could hardly have scored more often if the cherry-hooped jerseys they faced had been empty.
The All Blacks scored the most points in a test; recorded the largest winning margin (128 points); they scored the most tries in a test (21); the most conversions kicked in a test (20); the most points scored by a player in a test (45, Simon Culhane); the most tries scored by a player in a test (6, Marc Ellis); the most conversions kicked in a test by a player (20, Culhane) and the most mosts in a test (eight of those).
The only good news for Matsuda was that it couldn’t get any worse. It was Japan’s farewell to the tournament.
World Cup 1995 was the year of the slaughter of the innocents. Gavin Hastings will remember one afternoon he spent in Rustenburg with more affection than most visitors associate with the town. It was one of those days when everything he touched turned to gold.
Ivory Coast were his whipping boys. They had emerged out of two rounds of African qualifying, but nothing they had faced from Tunisia to Zimbabwe had prepared them for the step-up in class they faced in the finals.
Their rude awakening came in the first match of the tournament. Hastings, the galumphing Scotland full-back, bludgeoned his way to four tries and converted nine of his side’s 13 tries, as well as slotting a couple of conversions for a personal haul of 44 points.
That was fractionally shy of half his side’s points in an 89-0 victory – an unedifying spectacle for the 20 000-strong crowd.
However, much worse was to follow in their final match – a 29-11 defeat by Tonga. The triviality of scorelines was laid starkly bare as the Ivory Coast’s winger Max Brito was injured and left paralysed in the Tongan match.
Back in 1987, Italy were the whipping boys. Their 70-6 defeat in the days of the four-point try equates to an 82-6 drubbing at today’s prices. Rugby was tottering uncertainly into the newfangled world of global competitions for the first time, and some sides weren’t ready for it.
Italy were little more than a bunch of upper-class Anglophiles who liked rugby because they got to wear Barbour jackets without embarrassment and liked a bit of a sing-song in the pub afterwards. What they found opposing them in the All Blacks, though, was a host nation determined to underline their claim of being the world’s foremost rugby power.
With full-back John Kirwan in his pomp (he scored two tries), rat-catcher scrum- half David Kirk also claiming a brace and Grant Fox there to bang over eight conversions of the 12 tries, it was a massive wake-up call for Italian rugby.
Five days later they beat Fiji 74-13, but somehow it didn’t seem quite so bad. At least the islanders could defend themselves physically.
In the same tournament Japan’s gimmicky line-outs and urgent handling were shown to be insufficient. God, as Napoleon said, is on the side of the big battalions.
That same year Zimbabwe were klapped 70- 12 by France who ran in 12 tries with their ineffable blend of grace and disdain.
A team consisting apparently of 15 scrum-halves – and I’m talking about Chad Alcock scrum-halves and not Joost van der Westhuizen scrum-halves – were peeled off the sole of England’s boot after a 60-7 defeat in Sydney.
England scored 10 tries – much to their own surprise probably – and added seven conversions as the lopsided shape of world rugby was lain glaringly bare.
Events at Cardiff on October 6 1991 were not exactly a mismatch but are included as an antidote to the amount of crowing in which I fear the Welsh may be about to indulge themselves.
Wales were hosting Western Samoa in their opening match in pool three, and although they were in the deep slough of despond from which they have only been recently dragged by Graham Henry, what transpired had not been expected.
And what transpired was a 16-13 victory for the Western Samoans. What would have happened, one morose Welsh wit wanted to know, if they had been playing the whole of Samoa?
The ferocious tackling of the men in blue utterly unhinged the cringing Welsh, and with a backline that included such emerging eminencies as Frank Bunce, Stephen Bachop and Brian Lima, it was perhaps not surprising.
Oh yes, the most gory mismatch of all: England against Jonah Lomu, Newlands, June 18 1995. The Big Fella ran all over Mike Catt, Will Carling et al – a rugby nightmare writ very, very large.
The snarling, knee-pumping Lomu ran in four tries on his own and there was one each for Josh Kronfeld and Graeme Bachop in a 45-29 massacre. It was painful just watching, never mind trying to stop the monster, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house – tears of mirth were running down every cheek.
So what did happen to Tsutomu Matsuda? Well, the 29-year-old full-back is back. He is in Japan’s 1999 Rugby World Cup squad and New Zealand are not in their pool.