KEEP THE HEAD IN RED
Stander tells Payne to stay cool when he takes on his countrymen
SO, this is what the Irish use of the controversial 36-month residency rule gets you — a Lions XV containing four Irish starters, two of them not from Ireland. Go figure.
You’d at least assume that local knowledge of the lie of the New Zealand land would be helping Kiwi Jared Payne fit in, that his insights on what’s what in Auckland and elsewhere would have a slew of fellow Lions happily tapping him up. Not so.
‘No, I’m the go-to man to get the p*** taken out of me,’ he admitted when asked was he the go-to for a New Zealand insight. ‘The way the Kiwis talk and everything, a lot of boys are getting stuck into me. It’s all good light-hearted fun. It’s fun, nothing too serious.’ But it is serious. There is something weird about the prospect of seeing this midfielder run out in the famed red tomorrow, when he used to wear blue back in 2011, with hopes of becoming an All Black, until he opted to wear the white of Ulster with a view to securing the adoption that would enable him to don the green. That’s a kaleidoscope if ever there was one, nailing many colours to the mast.
He’s not alone in having switched allegiances during his career. CJ Stander, the other adopted Irishman set to feature for the Lions, was again reminiscing yesterday about how he was in the stands in Pretoria in 2009, roaring on the Springboks to the win that clinched that series with a match to spare. Now, he too has changed his loyalty.
But enough for now about this duo’s southern hemisphere origins. If the romance of the Lions was never on either player’s radar when they first learned their trade and featured in Super Rugby, they are Lions, they will wear red tomorrow and if they do subsequently make it on to the Test side, they will do so as proud Irish representatives.
Payne insisted it hadn’t gone through his head that under different circumstances he could have been running out of the home dressing room at Eden Park, a local eager to get his claws into the Lions. He made his bed in Belfast and is happily lying in it.
‘I don’t really get caught up in the what ifs,’ he said. ‘I’m just over the moon and it has been an awesome ride. I don’t get too worried about what I missed out on and I’m happy where I am.
‘Every now and then you think about it. Hurting myself when I first got to Ireland [he was out of the game for nearly a year with a ruptured Achilles tendon], it might have seemed like a bad thing. But now I wouldn’t change anything. I have set up a life over there, got a partner and a baby. I wouldn’t change it for the world really. It’s been a great ride and I wouldn’t change it.’
Being back at home, though, as an away player might not be plain sailing. Just ask Stander, whose homecoming came a cropper this time last year, his red-card expulsion in Cape Town something he himself brought up in Auckland when asked if he had advice for Payne on his homecoming. ‘Don’t get a red card in the first 40, probably,’ he quipped.
It was an old pal, Patrick Lambie, that Stander clattered into in mid-air, the collision an uncomfortable way for him to renew old acquaintances. Payne is hoping for a more light-hearted renewal if he encounters pals such as Charlie Faumuina. ‘We will be going after each other every now and again and if you get a chance, have a joke at the bottom of a ruck if you are lying beside them. It’s all good fun.’
Both Payne and Stander have much to do if they are to measure up, though, as imported Irish Lions, neither having the best of times lately.
Payne has only been seen in action a half-dozen times in 2017, his last sighting being on April 7, and his frustrations with injuries were again evident last weekend, a tweaked calf forcing him off the bench at Whangarei.
Equally Stander hasn’t looked the same winter force since rolling his ankle in Munster’s Euro quarter-final win over Toulouse, his misery compounded the weekend before last when he travelled to London to link up with the Lions in the company of a happy Scarlets trio — Liam Williams, Jonathan Davies and tomorrow’s Lions skipper Ken Owens — who had become Pro12 champions at the South African’s expense.
Payne hopes he won’t be found wanting. ‘It’s been a while. We’ll see how the lungs hold up. Fingers crossed they can last.’
Stander concurred. ‘When you put on a Lions jersey you can’t make excuses.’
Especially after last Saturday’s tour opening night excuse-fest.