James Ryan is hurting. He has emerged as a shining light in a very bright era for Irish rugby so it's a strange environment in which to find himself here in Shizuoka: in the antiseptic, indifferent no-man's land between the dressingroom and the bus. He is just showered, his mind still reeling and he is torn between admiration for the Japanese performance and acute disappointment of the way things panned out for Ireland.
“The 10 points here and there gave them belief and changed the momentum of the game but to give credit to them, I thought they were class today and they deserved their victory,” said Ryan. “We got close to their line a few times and we coughed up a few turnovers so it is a combination of those things.”
It was a strange afternoon for Ireland, in which a promising and assured beginning stalled on the half-hour mark and then flipped into a second half defined by injuries, mounting fatigue and a rampant and fearless Japanese performance which electrified the crowd of 50,000.
Ryan himself embellished his reputation through adversity, leading Ireland in tackles (15 along with Chris Farrell and Josh van der Flier) and ball carries (also 15) and lineouts won (four). He politely answers questions but his misery is clear.
“The message at half-time was just: pressure,” he remembers. “We could have started better, didn’t start as well as last week and we were letting them play too much. So, we looked to apply more pressure in the second half. When the subs came on, we did well to apply decent defensive pressure at times, I think, but it wasn’t consistent enough.”
Are you feeling a bit shell-shocked, he is asked?
“Eh, yeah.”
Ireland’s opening game against Scotland was an exhibition of control: three quick, efficient tries and then a stop-start second half in which Ireland comfortably played out the minutes. This was a different world: furious, constantly changing points of attack and barely, it seemed, a break in play. But Ryan was among the players who toured here in 2017, so he had an inkling that the pace of Japan’s attacking play would reach boiling point.
“I don’t think it massively surprised me to be honest. We knew that was going to be tough, combined with the heat and humidity, so I think they were exceptional today and they deserved it. Look across the board at their team. You had [Michael] Leitch coming off the bench, who is very strong, and [Fumiaki] Tanaka, the scrumhalf is a really good player. So when you have him coming on at the end the tempo is going to go up again.”
The fear that Japan would keep the Irish forwards moving and use the width of the pitch and transform the game into an end-to-end exploration of chaos materialised. The heat, then, became an enemy of the Irish.
“It was a tough game, yeah, especially the way they play,” Ryan nodded. “Definitely [we] were blowing a bit. But we can’t use any excuse. We knew for a while it was going to be a six-day turnaround so . . .”
“They love playing with the ball off the deck, just that kind of tempo game. So the biggest challenge in that is making sure you are ahead of the game and are ready to go. A couple of times we weren’t set and they punished us.
“A lot of teams like to play with that kind of tempo. I think they did it really well today. You know, it is probably different to the type of game we might get with South Africa but it works for them.”
Ryan has a vague memory of the game's closing act, when Ireland won the ball back after defending a scrum in front of their posts. Down 19-12, they could conceivably rescued a draw. Instead, Joey Carbery kicked for touch to ensure Japan didn't come away with a bonus-point win.
“It happened pretty quickly. We were defending the scrum on our line and there was a turnover all of a sudden and we had the ball in the dead-ball area, so it went to touch. That was kind of it. I don’t really know about the decision.”
The game changes Ireland’s charted progression through the group, with New Zealand looming large again now and the abrasive challenge of Russia to be dealt with next Thursday in Kobe. For Ireland, the next task will be to make the mental jump to preparation for that task.
“I think you have to. It is all about reaction now. We can feel sorry for ourselves. Or we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and go again. And that is our intention, so . . .”
