Kiwi Karne Hesketh celebrates scoring the winning try for Japan in their first World Cup pool match against South Africa. Photo / Getty Images
Kiwi Karne Hesketh celebrates scoring the winning try for Japan in their first World Cup pool match against South Africa. Photo / Getty Images
Ex- Otago wing comes on as late sub and helps Japan to stun rugby world.
It's the talk of the World Cup - the result that shocked the rugby world.
And the winning try in Japan's 34-32 victory over South Africa was scored by a Kiwi.
Former Alhambra-Union player Karne Hesketh moved to Japan from Dunedin when he couldn't crack the big time here. Butafter scoring that try yesterday morning, Hesketh and his teammates are the biggest story in sport.
Hesketh, who played 35 games on the wing for Otago before moving to Japan in early 2010, scored in the 85th minute to give the Cherry Blossoms the 34-32 win, only its second at the World Cup, and the biggest upset in Cup history.
Until yesterday, Japan had played 24 games at the Cup for just one win against Zimbabwe back in 1991.
Hesketh came on with under 10 minutes to go in yesterday's game and made the difference, getting on the end of a Japanese back move and scoring the dramatic winner.
Carla Hohepa, his fiancee, with whom he has a son, Cohen, said she watched it alongside her family at her home just outside Hamilton.
She said after the match the pair, who have been together for nine years, talked on Skype.
"He didn't have much to say. I guess he was still in shock and couldn't quite believe what happened. He had a massive grin on his face, which said it all."
In Napier, proud grandmother Joy Pettit had already watched the match twice with husband Norm. "I laugh. It was that rugby team that did all the work - Karne just came on for three minutes, and scored the try."
Karne Hesketh played for Alhambra after school. Photo / Otago Daily Times
She said ever since she started taking him to training at Whitmore Park in Napier when he was 5, her grandson had trained hard.
"It's a job now. Everyone's very proud. They're excited. He deserves it," she said.
He went through "all the grades", played Ross Shield primary schools tournament rugby and he played in the Napier's Boys High School Under 15 team when it was second in the 1999 national final, and in the 1st XV when it won the Super Eight schools title in 2002.
Hesketh, 30, was remembered by his old headmaster as an "explosive" schoolboy athlete in Hawke's Bay before he shifted south and became a "block-busting" winger.
"We had a really good side in that era," Napier Boys High School headmaster Ross Brown said.
"We're very proud of him [and] all these guys who do well on a world stage, but particularly in such a significant event for world rugby, that's probably why we're delighted.
"It's always great to see them playing and you knew them well as kids. I've been away on a prefects camp with Karne." Hesketh was a strong all-round athlete and excelled at the high jump too.
"He's a chunky fella but he's powerful and very explosive," Mr Brown said. "He was a very good flanker and you could imagine someone with his speed, power and agility."
After school Hesketh headed south and former Alhambra-Union coach Mike Moeahu said when he arrived at the club he was a flanker.
"Then he was playing second five-eighth and I saw the things that he could do so we put him out on the wing," he said.
"He's got so much power and pace. He did things like he did today. He could always do something special."
Hesketh - who was once in the New Zealand bobsled squad - scored some top tries for Otago in the 2009 season but was not picked up by the Highlanders. He decided to head to Japan in early 2010 and picked up a contract with Fukuoka Sanix Blues.
He has been at the club since and made his debut for the national side last year.
"I think the rugby up there suits him. I just thought here they tried to make him into something that he's not. They took a lot of his athletic ability away from him." Alhambra club captain Hugh Tait, who watched a replay of yesterday's match, said Hesketh was part of a successful era for club, where they won the local competition a couple of times and regularly made the play-offs.
"When he was playing for us he was outstanding. He used to be a flanker. He came to us as a flanker but I think he realised he wasn't going to be big enough and he said he wanted to be a winger.
"He was just a blockbusting runner. He ran around people, over people, he was great."
Mr Tait said the club might arrange something for Japan's next cup games. "I'll have to have a look at the schedule and see what time they are playing."
Image 1 of 10: Ayumu Goromaru of Japan tackles Jean De Villiers of South Africa. Photo / Getty Images
How world media reacted
"The Rugby World Cup always comes with the vague promise that something surprising will happen, but nobody thought the great surprise, the shock of all shocks, would be delivered on day one proper of the eighth version of the tournament. Brighton is now enshrined in Japan rugby folklore."
"Guilty, quite clearly, of thinking this would be easy against a country reflecting on 18 straight World Cup losses, a country that's one and only World Cup win came against Zimbabwe in 1991, South Africa were caught cold by the speed and ferocity of Japan's running and the accuracy of their passing." - Matt Lawton, Daily Mail
"It was Japan's finest hour and confirmed Eddie Jones as one of the great World Cup coaches, having steered Australia to the 2003 final, helped South Africa win in 2007 and overseen South Africa's first ever loss to a tier two nation." - Iain Payten, Sydney Daily Telegraph
