BORDEAUX - Japan's coach, John Kirwan, has praised his team's spirit but was not entirely satisfied with their draw against Canada yesterday.
"I think that we showed a lot of courage. We could have played a lot better so to come out with adraw is bittersweet," he said.
Canada coach Ric Suggitt said his players only had themselves to blame for throwing away the victory. "We had our opportunities in the second half but didn't put them away."
Japan opened the scoring when Kosuke Endo came off the right wing into the midfield and broke through three paper-hard tackles to score. Canada, battling back to a 12-5 lead, thought they should have had a decisive try when captain Morgan Williams touched down but referee Jonathan Kaplan went to the video referee, who disallowed the score.
Williams, appearing in his third World Cup, said: "We've been hit a couple of times now in the tournament and I think the referees need to start taking ownership of the calls.
"We've been screwed there, it's clearly a try and I don't know why he can't make the call - he was standing right there."
With the clock ticking down, Japan opened up and started running the ball in a thrilling finale.
