Meyer says he had anticipated a closely fought World Cup tournament but even by his powers of prediction, he would have never imagined in his wildest nightmare that Japan would be the team to illustrate the great strides which the minnows have made in world rugby.

Coached by Eddie Jones, who was part of the Springboks’ staff during their 2007 triumph, Japan more than matched their illustrious opponents all over the pitch.

A try four minutes into added time from Karne Hesketh gave the minnows an unlikely victory, with South Africa reduced to 14 men after seeing Coenie Oosthuizen sent to the sin bin.

“One thing about Japanese players they can keep rolling it out”.

But this was undoubtedly their most satisfying World Cup success, with flanker Giorgi Tkhilaishvili sealing the deal when he touched down after 57 minutes, while full-back Merab Kvirikashvili kicked a penalty and two conversions.

Japan will now have hopes of being one of the two teams from the group to qualify for the quarterfinals.

“Maybe they were elsewhere today, thinking of something else, like the Samoa game (next Saturday) or the quarter-finals, and not on today’s game”.

“Samoa won’t like this result one bit”.

Before the tournament began, the odds of Japan winning were as far out as 100/1 for Japan to win.

“Now hopefully they will want to be the next Michael Leitch“. It was David v Goliath but we have been training for this day for the last four years.

“Myself as the coach take full responsibility and must push the right buttons to get us back on track and the players as well”. They played some brilliant rugby from the word go, and proved to themselves and to the world that Japan are a serious rugby team, and that anything is possible in sport.

The quarterfinal matches start on October 17 and will have the victor of Pool B taking on the runner up of Pool A. The rest of the draw for that round will go through October 18 and then the semis will be on October 24 and October 25 at Twickenham Stadium.

“Their defence was awesome but we have let our country down – it’s not good enough”. “I have to apologise to the nation”, he said. “It wasn’t good enough, by a long shot”.

Japan’s Coach Eddie Jones, whose mother is Japanese, took over the national game in 2012.

South Africa’s Schalk Burger on Sunday urged his team-mates not withdraw into their “shells” after a stunning defeat by Japan in their World Cup opener. They could easily have gone for the penalty.