The score at the Brighton Community Stadium on 19 September 2015, in the pool stage of the Rugby World Cup.
The two teams
Japan had played at every World Cup since the tournament began in 1987 and had won one match, against Zimbabwe in 1991. Across the eighteen matches that followed they had not won again. In 1995 they lost to New Zealand a hundred and forty five to seventeen, which remains the heaviest defeat in the tournament's history.
South Africa had won the World Cup in 1995 and 2007.
The coach
Eddie Jones, an Australian, had taken over Japan in 2012. He put the squad through a training programme that started before dawn and was widely reported as brutal even by professional standards. His argument was that Japan could not out-muscle anyone, so they would have to be fitter and faster than everyone.
The match
Japan led at times and were never out of it. With the clock in the red they were three points behind and were awarded a penalty within range.
The kick would have levelled the match. A draw against South Africa would have been, on its own, the biggest result in Japanese rugby history and one of the biggest in the tournament's.
The captain, Michael Leitch, waved the kick away and called for a scrum in the corner.
The last five minutes
Japan went through phase after phase inside the South African twenty two. They were held up, they went back, they came again. Eventually the ball went left and Karne Hesketh went over in the corner. There was no time to restart.
After
Japan won two more matches in that pool and still did not qualify for the quarter-finals, which had never happened to a team with three wins before or since.
Four years later, hosting the tournament, they beat Ireland and Scotland and reached the quarter-finals for the first time.
Why the kick matters
Every account of that match returns to the same thirty seconds. The result was not an accident of a bounce. Japan were offered the draw and declined it.