Quotes of the Tournament - 'Sport can be cruel sometimes - I guess that's why we love it'

"I am very powerful but I do not yet control the weather. It is a bit above my pay grade."
Argentina head coach Michael Cheika on whether he wanted rain for their semi-final

"I made a little joke saying 'you know they've got the 'Bomb Squad', so we could have the 'Easy Company'."
New Zealand flanker Dalton Papali'i on South Africa's forward pack

"He's got real BMT [big-match temperament], a big set of nuts on him and plays pressure situations really well."
South Africa prop Steven Kitshoff on fly-half Handre Pollard's winning penalty two minutes from the end of their semi-final

"Playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan."
Hollywood star and rugby fan Javier Bardem

"If there is going to be beef, there is going to be beef."
South Africa fly-half Handre Pollard on their semi-final against England

“A loss in a quarter-final, tears running down your face, that’s a feeling you never want to feel again.”
Dewi Lake, the Wales hooker, sums up defeat against Argentina

“Sport can be cruel sometimes - I guess that's why we love it."
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell after their epic quarter-final defeat by New Zealand

'We’re not going to die wondering'

"First and foremost I'm proud to be a Fijian but I am also proud of the so-called developing nations, pushing for the global game, how we can improve it and get more opportunities, how we break that barrier down."
Head coach Simon Raiwalui on flying the flag for Fiji as well as other nations who are trying to break into contention for the quarter-finals of a World Cup.

“Bundee [Aki] thinks they’re singing ‘Bundee, Bundee’, but they’re definitely not.”
Ireland scrum-half Conor Murray on their fans' unofficial anthem, 'Zombie' by The Cranberries

"Everyone gets up at three or five o’clock in the morning. People who are sick come alive when we win games. We’ve just got to make sure that we not only play for a certain quarter-final, we just play for our own people - young kids, people in the village - it means a lot to them."
Fiji kicking coach Seremaia Bai explains what the quarter-final against England means back home

"Myself, Billy [Vunipola] and Elliot [Daly] come from a club [Saracens] that aren't very well liked either, we don't mind being in that position."
England hooker Jamie George on the team being disliked by other teams' fans

"Some people could think that we want to help Fiji more than Australia. In fact, we don’t really care. We just care about us. We still dream of victory."
Portugal head coach Patrice Lagisquet makes it clear his focus is on winning a RWC 2023 match, not on who might reach the last eight from Pool C

"This is why you play rugby; if you want it easy and for the script to be written, don't worry about coming."
Argentina head coach Michael Cheika on his team's final pool game with Japan in Nantes

"No. I'm not an administrator. I love the game, I don't love politics. I am not a politician. I never have been, never will be."
Eddie Jones, the Wallabies head coach, on the possibility of being a high-performance director with Rugby Australia

"We’re not going to die wondering, we’ve got to fire every bullet in our gun."
Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie prior to their final pool game against Ireland

"I wouldn’t call it hatred - but there’s a little bit of knife in the back."
South Africa second-row Jean Kleyn on the rivalry between Ireland and Scotland at club and test level

"He [Keita Inagaki] talked about how it’s going to be ‘Samurai Time’, where once we pull the sword out, it’s going to be do or die, and how we have to drop our Katana (sword in Japanese) on them to defeat them."
Japan's team director Yuichiro Fujii on Inagaki's speech before they faced Argentina

"What we failed (in) against the All Blacks is under pressure, we actually choked."
Italy's scrum coach Andrea Moretti on what let the team down against New Zealand

"The Haggard Badger?! Peter's a massive leader for our group in terms of rugby, what we stand for, the social side of things, how well knit we are. He's a massive part of that."
Second-row Iain Henderson pays tribute to his team-mate Peter O'Mahony before the flanker won his 100th Ireland cap