5 Biggest Surprises at the 2015 Rugby World Cup

The Rugby World Cup 2015 saw stadiums packed and stars born and gave us the best edition of the tournament there has ever been.

We were treated to tighter contests between giants and minnows than has been the case before, with far fewer totally one-sided affairs.

And in the scraps between the lower-tier nations, we witnessed gripping encounters that often went down to the last knockings.

To top it off, the best team we have ever seen walked off with the prize.

No tournament will ever feel complete again without a shock to rival the one we saw on opening weekend, and it’s Japan’s triumph over mighty South Africa that leads the way in this list of surprises from the last seven weeks.

But before we delve into the top five, here are some honourable mentions:

• New Zealand's Sonny Bill Williams giving his medal away to a young pitch-invader
• Craig Joubert's incredible turn of foot
• Joe Launchbury's Man of the Match award vs. Australia
• Romania's Florin Surugiu's on-field proposal

1. Japan’s World Cup

The Brave Blossoms could not have set the stage for 2019 any better.

Eddie Jones’ team pulled off the greatest shock the game has ever seen—perhaps the greatest shock in the history of sports—with its 34-32 win over South Africa in Brighton, England.

Karne Hesketh’s last-minute winning try sealed a remarkable victory for a team whose greatest claim to fame previously had been being on the wrong end of the tournament’s biggest-ever thumping, a 145-17 thrashing by New Zealand in 1995.

But the Asian champions weren’t done there.

They went on to shut out Samoa 26-0 and then downed the USA to finish with three wins. In doing so, they became the first nation to have recorded that many victories and not make it out of the pool stages.

They might not have had their day in the quarter-finals, but they do have an army of new fans.

2. Argentina’s Style

The Pumas brought their customary passion and colour everywhere they went, but they also brought the tournament’s most exhilarating style of rugby.

Having rattled the All Blacks in their first game, they unleashed a torrent of tries from their free-wheeling backs against the rest of their pool opposition. The likes of Juan Imhoff, Joaquin Tuculet and Santiago Cordero left vapour trails behind them as they carved up the fields of Kingsholm and the King Power.

And once the opposition got more serious again in the shape of Ireland, Argentina simply pressed down harder on the accelerator.

A two-try burst in the opening exchanges of the quarter-final had the Irish reeling, and they were finished off with more free-running rugby late in the piece to turn Cardiff into a little corner of Buenos Aires.

3. Lancaster’s Selection

OLI SCARFF/Getty Images

Not all surprises are good ones. Stuart Lancaster’s decision to jettison George Ford for England’s two crunch games in Pool A smacked of fear, plain and simple.

A young man who had orchestrated a 55-point display against France and a fine one in Cardiff only months earlier was suddenly deemed untrustworthy to pilot the team through its biggest test.

Combine that with the odd choice of Sam Burgess, at whose door no blame can be placed—he didn’t pick himself—and you have the worst example of brain freeze any coach has suffered on the big stage.

4. New Zealand’s Performance Against France

It was all set up for a case of deja vu for the All Blacks.

Modest and muted during an untroubling pool section, were they about to run into the jaws of a battle-hardened France side about to do to them what they had done in 2007 on the same ground?

In the most complete display the World Cup has ever seen, New Zealand unleashed rugby from the gods on France, handing them a 62-14 thrashing that no one saw coming.

Dan Carter was smooth, Nehe Milner-Skudder was electric, and Julian Savea, who scored a hat-trick, was irresistible.

5. Australia’s Props

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They may have creaked a little against Argentina and the All Blacks, but in the Pool of Death, Australia’s scrum was deadliest of all. The Wallabies have, for years, known only reverse gear when it comes to the set piece.

But Mario Ledesma, that gnarled South American who used to scrummage like his opponent had insulted his mother, has changed all that.

England, who won a World Cup while battering one Wallaby scrum and dumped them out of the next one largely thanks to the same green-and-gold front-row failings, were driven into oblivion by the machine Ledesma had built.

The Wales front row also coughed up penalties under pressure that helped Australia to the top of the pool.

We have always known Australia had the tools behind their pack, but they now have the missing piece of the jigsaw. In Scott Sio (24) and Sekope Kepu (29), they have two young warriors who can form the bedrock for a few more seasons yet.