By Rich Freeman,
Japan's exit from the Rugby World Cup will no doubt lead to a number of "what if" questions being asked.
"What if they had made their tackles against Argentina?" would certainly be the most recent, and it was addressed by wing Kotaro Matsushima immediately after Sunday's 39-27 loss to the Pumas at Stade de la Beaujoire.
"It wasn't a bad performance from us, but at various points we allowed them to score soft tries," he said. "There were two or three easy tries for them, which wasn't good for us."
"We kept on coming back at them, scored some good tries and got within a few points of Argentina. We kept the game tight. But then in the last 20 minutes or so, we let the game slip away."
Letting the game slip away was also the story of the Brave Blossoms' earlier Pool D loss to England, when a lack of big-match experience came to the fore.
"There is more to come for us, but if we want to challenge for the World Cup, then we need more games," Matsushima said.
As captain Kazuki Himeno pointed out following the defeat to Argentina, "We had a game plan, but at this level of rugby, we didn't react the way we wanted."
Perhaps that ability to react would have been different if certain other players had been selected for the 33-man squad.
While there was plenty of innovation on show during the Rugby World Cup -- Naoto Saito and Yutaka Nagare both put in over-the-shoulder kicks that will be talked about for some time -- a Plan B seemed to be lacking at times.
The squad's two pivots played in a very similar way and did not pose the attacking threat of a No. 10 with pace to burn, such as Takuya Yamasawa. That said, Rikiya Matsuda contributed exemplary goal kicking throughout the tournament.
Too much ball, however, was kicked away, somewhat aimlessly at times. And against Argentina, Japan were totally defeated in the aerial game. It would have been interesting to see how Ryuji Noguchi would have fared, both in chasing the high kicks the Brave Blossoms put up and defending those from the Pumas.
But as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. It is always easy to second guess after the fact.
While some critics may completely dismiss Japan's efforts, there were positives to come from the tournament.
Jack Cornelsen and Amato Fakatava combined superbly in the second row, with Cornelsen doing a lot of unseen hard graft, and Fakatava finishing with three tries, including one against the Pumas that must be in the running for score of the tournament.
Himeno worked tirelessly, as did the old warhorse Michael Leitch, and special mention must also be made of Japan's 24th match-day player, the fans, who never gave up cheering.
"It's a shame that we couldn't give everyone a better result at the end, but I want to thank all the fans for their support," said Leitch.
"Many of the players experienced this big hurdle first hand, so we will reflect on what we need to do to prepare for the next phase of our rugby and think positively."
That next phase will obviously be under a new coach following Joseph's decision to return to New Zealand.
"We need to start building towards 2027," said Matsushima. "I don't know who our head coach is going to be, we will see. There are a few players maybe retiring, but nobody talked about that. We can't choose to be in the squad, it all depends on who the new head coach is."
Fumiaki Tanaka, who played in three World Cups for Japan, was critical of Joseph and his tactics in an interview with l'Equipe, saying the traditional Japan game based on possession, endurance and speed had disappeared in favor of a game dependent on power and defense.
But it should be noted that Tanaka had said in August, "Each Japan player's ability is higher than in 2019. There's a good chance of them making the last four."
Perhaps the most telling comment over the weekend, though, came from Ayumu Goromaru, one of Japan's heroes at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, when they famously beat South Africa.
"This tournament made me realize once again that the efforts and sacrifices of the players, coaches and staff alone can only reach certain limits," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"Unless there are major structural changes, there will be no further development in the Japanese rugby world."
Related coverage:
Rugby: Jamie Joseph pleads for Tier 2 nations to get more shots at best
Rugby: Japan miss out on World Cup q'final spot
Rugby: Japan will play Wales in q'final if they can tame Pumas
