A POINT MADE Stander lays down gauntlet to rivals in Irish camp
FROM the moment he charged at Johnny Sexton from the base of an early Munster scrum, CJ Stander looked like a man on a mission last Saturday night.
The South African-born backrower can be a polarising figure, but wherever you stand on project players, the residency ruling etc, there is no doubt that Stander has made a serious impact for province and country since he arrived in Limerick in 2012.
After a shaky first few years at Munster, Stander found his feet and has been ever-present at No8. He became a firm fixture at Test level once he became Irish-qualified in 2016. A keen admirer of Stander’s physicality and freakish workrate, Joe Schmidt quickly found a place for him on the blindside, with Jamie Heaslip having tenure on the No8 jersey.
Then there was that slidingdoors moment in the minutes leading up to that Six Nations finale against England in 2017. Heaslip was virtually indestructible up until that point, but he pulled up with a back injury – which would ultimately end his career — during the warm-up. Stander shifted to No8 with Peter O’Mahony, returning from a longterm injury, regaining the blindside spot. The Corkman was named man of the match 80 minutes later as Eddie Jones’s bid for back-to-back Grand Slams was derailed in Dublin. Both Munster players made the flight to New Zealand as part of Warren Gatland’s Lions squad a few months later. Both were firm fixtures in Schmidt’s starting teams for several years, but there was a sense that things were about to change during the World Cup in Japan. O’Mahony and Stander both started the impressive 27-3 win over the Scots in the opening round, but the plan was to change things up against Japan six days later. Jack Conan was pencilled in to start at No8 with Stander set to move back to the blindside.
Then Conan fractured his foot in the last big training session of the week and the experiment was abandoned. Schmidt returned to the tried-and-trusted backrow axis of O’Mahony, Van der Flier and Stander for that ill-fated quarter-final meeting with the All Blacks in Tokyo.
Calls to freshen up that combination were deafening in the months leading up to the Six Nations the following year.
Andy Farrell seemed to agree and rolled out Leinster’s latest wunderkind Caelan Doris at No8 with Stander moving to the flank once again. When Doris got injured, Farrell went back to that usual triumvirate against England, but Ireland got rinsed once again.
Players always talk of ignoring outside noise and focusing on their own games, but unless Stander was living under a rock during lockdown the 30-year-old will have heard plenty of calls for a changing of the guard in the backrow.
The likes of Doris, Conan, Max Deegan and the returning Dan Leavy have been put forward as more explosive and dynamic options in the backrow at Test level.
For all his industry and aggression, Stander has regularly been singled out as one dimensional by his critics. He will always be there or thereabouts at the top of the carry and tackle charts, but his critics will point out that his game lacks variety and that he’s too predictable.
Taking all that into account, Stander looked like someone with a point to prove in the Aviva. Doris has been anointed as a key figure in Ireland’s plans going forward while Conan possesses unrivalled power and athleticism, but the Munster No8 threw down the gauntlet to his much-vaunted rivals during a typically robust 80minute shift. No one in red carried the ball more than Stander (16) on Saturday night while only O’Mahony (13) made more tackles than him during that frenzied contest. What’s more, Stander was a pest at the breakdown and was credited with four turnovers during the game. Those kind of stats will be hard to ignore when Farrell sits down to select his starting XV ahead of that packed Test schedule in October and November.
Lest we forget, Stander is also on an IRFU central contract. That deal expires in June of next year just before the Lions tour of South Africa. He would relish the opportunity to play in that series. After all, it was his former coach Heyneke Meyer’s insistence that Stander switch to hooker which nudged him in Ireland’s direction all those years ago.
Who knows, maybe Meyer was right and Stander could have gone on to become a world-class hooker for the Springboks? He could have been a world champion by now, but Stander stuck to his guns. People have been telling him he doesn’t have the size and the skill to be a top-class No8 since he was a schoolboy.
That seems to drive him on. You could almost imagine Meyer’s words ringing in his ears just before he took off on a typical charge last time out.
He will be looking to prove plenty more wrong in the coming years.
“Stander was a
pest at the breakdown”