Japan were able to predict how Ireland would play and come up with a plan to combat against it, according to Japanese prop Isileli Nakajima.
Asked by Off The Ball's Eoin Sheahan whether he was surprised by Ireland's performance, Nakajima explained that their opponents played exactly as they anticipated
"They played exactly how we expected", the 30-year-old prop replied.
"We expected them to try and hold the ball as much as they can, so we tried to hold the ball as much as we could in the defence. We tried to get the ball back as much as we could and we planned for the whole week to get the ball back."
While Japan caused another upset in the World Cup four years ago, beating the Springboks in Brighton, Nakajima said that defeating Ireland marked the peak of his career.
"I feel awesome; we just beat one of the best teams in the world. For four years we have been training hard to prepare for this moment. We stuck to our plan to play how we did and we won the game.
"This is my first World Cup and I have been playing prop for only four months, so it came out really good.
"It wasn't difficult because we had a good scrum coach who believed in what I can do. So I believed in him and stuck to the plan.
"Every day we were talking about how to do the scrum and that's where this all came from.
Japan now have a real chance of topping Pool A, and Nakajima said it was important the squad's attention is turned to facing Samoa and Scotland.
"We are confident, but we are not going to stay and say, 'look we beat the best team in the world.' We have a plan so we need to stick to it to make sure we get to the quarter-final. We just need to stick to our plan," Nakajima said.
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