Reaction after Japan beat Samoa 26-5 in Rugby World Cup Pool B on Saturday (3rd October) in Milton Keynes to maintain their chances of reaching the RWC quarter-finals.

Script:

SOUNDBITE: (English) Eddie Jones, Japan head coach:

"I thought our forwards were fantastic today. We shut Samoa out of the game with our.... we added some set piece dominance, and our work around the ruck in attack and defence was absolutely first class. We.... managed to get that twenty-nil lead at half-time and it was always going to be difficult for Samoa to chase that lead. We still haven't played as well as we can at the World Cup and that was the disappointing thing."

SOUNDBITE: (English) Eddie Jones, Japan head coach (on Japan's chances of reaching the quarter-finals):

" We play against the USA. We've got to hope South Africa do the right thing today (against Scotland), and then Samoa do the right thing next week. But we don't control those things. We always said we came to this tournament with two targets: one, to be the team of the tournament; and secondly to make the quarter-finals."
"If you look at the history of Japanese rugby, they've won one World Cup game in 24 years. We've just doubled that, so if we can win the third game against USA and.... obviously it's going to be a tough game, but we think we can. We've changed the history of rugby in Japan."

SOUNDBITE: (English) Stephen Betham, Samoa head coach:

"We started to struggle in areas because we over-exerted ourselves when we, when you have to defend with 13 men, but in saying that, I think Japan played well, took their chances and.... congratulate them on the win."