A Wales men’s crowd came away with the pride of a win at home for the first time in more than two years as the hosts beat Japan but the overriding feeling was of relief. The Welsh performance was miles off of what is expected on these shores. Sloppy attack, squandered opportunities and a 20-minute red card for Josh Adams almost gifted the win to Eddie Jones’ team but that won’t be remembered in years to come, what will be is Jarrod Evans’ name.

It was his last-play-of-the-game penalty which won the game for Wales, the first in the head coach Steve Tandy’s reign. The roar that followed has to be up there with one of the loudest this stadium has heard. It was the replacement’s only kick at goal of the game and he had nerves of steel to seal the victory.

Jones had said he wanted his team to make the pressure Wales are under feel like a “burden” and for a large portion of the game they did that with brave attack. But a few tries went begging for them too, as well as a few penalty kick misses.

There were four cards in the game – Adams’ red and three yellow cards for Japan. Jones, who joked the last-minute loss made him want to “kill someone”, added he thought all of those decisions were “farcical”. “I think we are absolutely ruining the game of rugby,” Jones said. “I don’t think any of the actions were intentional, I don’t think they deserved to be sin binned. Any of them. I think we have to have a more sensible approach to the game.

“There is going to be contact with the head, unless it is reckless which I didn’t see any of those actions being. A penalty is fair enough … The game of rugby is about having 15 players on the field and I think World Rugby should be looking at this very closely.”

Quick GuideWales v Japan teamsShow

Wales: Murray; Rees-Zammit, Llewellyn, B Thomas, Adams (Tompkins 60); Edwards (Evans 79), T Williams; Smith (Carre 48), Lake (Belcher 77), Griffin (Assiratti 48), D Jenkins (F Thomas 79), Beard, Wainwright (Plumtree 48), Mann, Cracknell.

Tries: Edwards, Rees-Zammit, Tompkins. Cons: Edwards (3). Pen: Evans

Red card: Adams (40)
Japan: Yazaki; Ishida (Ueda 78), Riley, Lawrence, Osadal; Lee (Komura 77), Saito; Kobayashi (Furuhata 77), Sato, Tamefusa (Takeuchi 49), Uluiviti (Hockings 49), Dearns (capt), Cornelsen, Shimokawa (Paul 69), Makisi.

Tries: Ishida, Makisi Cons: Lee (2). Pens: Lee (3). Sin-bin: Uluiviti (25), Makisi (29), Hockings (80)
Referee: Matthew Carley (Eng). Attendance: 61,324

Thank you for your feedback.

It was a must-win for Wales as if they had lost they would have been leapfrogged by the visitors in the world rankings. That would have put Wales on the more difficult side of the Rugby World Cup draw, on 3 December, as they would have dropped to 13th. So this game was a must win but they had to do it without captain Jac Morgan, who was ruled out with a dislocated shoulder.

The home side were bolstered by Louis Rees-Zammit, who made his first start and scored his first international try since returning to rugby. The hope of Wales finally winning at home was palpable before kick-off with the atmosphere absolutely electric. The lights went down but a red undertone remained with a pyrotechnics show making the Principality feel like a cauldron.

Quick GuideSouth Africa shrug off early red to sink ItalyShow

South Africa shrugged off a red card for the second successive match to power to a 32-14 win over an Italy side that threw away a golden opportunity to earn a rare win over the Springboks in Turin on Saturday.

Franco Mostert was shown a red card after 11 minutes but Italy failed to make their extra man count, with Paolo Garbisi guilty of missing kickable penalties.

Tries from Marco van Staden, Morné van den Berg, Grant Williams and Ethan Hooker earned South Africa a comfortable win after they withstood enormous early pressure from Italy, who scored one second-half try through Ange Capuozzo. Guardian sport

Thank you for your feedback.

A cacophony of noise flooded the stadium as Dan Edwards darted over but thanks to the skill of Japan’s Faulua Makisi it was the visitors next putting pressure on. The No 8 was instrumental in two dangerous attacks which led to a try by Kippei Ishida. Japan were the better side in the first half but things took a turn as they were handed two yellow cards for Epineri Uluiviti and Makisi. But despite being depleted, Japan did not concede and Wales had their own card to deal with as Adams’ illegal clear-out was upgraded to a red card after a bunker review.

skip past newsletter promotion

The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The back and forth nature of the encounter was nail-biting but Evans’ penalty sealed the result and fans cheered like steam finally escaping a bubbling pot.

Tandy said of Evans’ kick: “I couldn’t watch it, I hid around the side [of the coaching box]. I could see the crowd, I could see Jarrod going to take the kick but I couldn’t see the posts. But then you just hear the eruption from the support. Fair play to Jarrod, that kick is some kick under pressure.”

Wales are back to winning ways at home and will look to bring more victories to the Principality. But with two huge challenges coming against New Zealand and South Africa, and their only wins in their last 21 Tests coming against Japan, it is likely to be 2026 before fans see Wales win again.