Progressive team but CJ needs to pull up his trousers
WHEN you read those ‘How to be a parent’ books, none of them mention what to do when your young fella won’t stop mooning everybody.
Mooning, for the record, is when somebody turns around and waves their rear end at somebody else — the lowering of trousers being optional.
It brings to mind the infamous local paper article about Bertie Ahern about 15 years ago, which began: ‘When your back is against the wall, all you can do is turn around and fight.’
Anyway, the three-year-old is obsessed with moonies, both the bare and clothed kind, and has taken to adding commentary along the lines of ‘Hey, what do you think of this guy?’ — to grab attention before unleashing his visual punchline.
It came to a head the other day, after meeting our very elegant, elderly lady neighbour on the walk home. Polite greetings were exchanged, along with observations about the inclement weather, when a knee-level voice piped up, Scarface style, from behind: ‘Say hello to this guy!’ before our mini Al Pacino dropped his slacks and fired out his cheeky greeting.
Neighbourly relations have been strained since.
Apparently, it’s known as ‘negative pattern behaviour’ which, embarrassingly, is attributable to the miscreant’s key development influencers and upbringing.
Watching Ireland against Fiji last weekend brought the issue of negative pattern behaviour to mind — specifically in the impact, or lack thereof, of substitute back-row CJ Stander.
The Munster man had a couple of carries met by brick-wall Fijian defence and, on 70 minutes, with men outside and space in front, ploughed into contact once again only to see the ball turned over.
Stander’s upbringing was in South Africa, influenced by a rugby environment where, traditionally, contact is key and hard, and aggressive carries are the order of the day.
It is a culture he embraced and one that has stood to him since he arrived in Ireland in 2012, making Stander a cult figure in Munster and proving equally successful, initially, when he qualified for Ireland.
However, since the Lions tour to New Zealand last summer, there is a sense of Stander being found out — a pony whose popularity cannot disguise the fact he has one trick to call upon.
Stander went on that tour as a hot tip to make the Lions Test back row but the Kiwis lined him up and mowed him down and that expedition largely passed him by.
Similarly, this season, the player who once collected man of the match awards for fun has struggled to have anything approaching his previous impact.
South Africa don’t generally produce footballing No8s, the last standout example was Bobby Skinstad in the late 1990s and early 2000s — a player whose selection frequently caused controversy when more attritional options like Gary Teichmann were omitted.
Teams are working Stander’s Springbok-esque approach out and there is no evidence, yet, of a varied attacking approach in the interests of a necessary reinvention.
Stander aside, Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team selection for the clash with Argentina tomorrow was highly encouraging.
Having advocated a policy of pragmatic rotation until the 2019 World Cup, it was uplifting to see hugely impressive second row James Ryan get his opportunity in the first-choice pack and Adam Byrne picked on the right wing.
Byrne has come in for extreme criticism, veering towards personal attack, for his defensive game this season but he is a player with vast potential and Schmidt would not have gone with him if he did not think he was capable of developing his allround game.
This is the perfect Test for Byrne, and Ryan, to state their World Cup case and No8 was the only downside to an otherwise progressive selection.
There is no personal bias against Stander here and not wanting him in the team has nothing to do with the conviction the South African should not be allowed to represent Ireland having failed to fulfil his Springbok dream.
It is rather based on the belief Jack Conan is the more rounded player and deserves a chance to showcase his abilities in a frontline Test.
Conan ticks all the No8 boxes — big carries, quality passing and offloading, natural pace, aggressive defence and athletic lineout ability — but will be on the bench for Leinster against the Dragons tonight rather than running out against the Pumas tomorrow.
With Jamie Heaslip’s future unclear, Ireland need to go to the World Cup with more nuance at No8 than Stander provides and you suspect Conan will earn that jersey in any case before 2019. But he should have it now. Stander may be capable of reversing his negative pattern behaviour of over-reliance on the straight-up carry but Conan’s patterns are already convincingly positive.
When it comes to the all-round brand of rugby Ireland need to finally achieve something meaningful at a World Cup, Leinster are leading the way and Conan is a standard-bearer.
There is a blue moon rising and Stander needs to pull up his trousers or get out of the way.
The Lions tour passed Stander by