Stander weighs in on the waterboy debate

Former junior Springbok and Irish international star CJ Stander has backed Duane Vermeulen to make an impact at next year’s World Cup and believes Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus (below) will find a way around World Rugby’s attempt to keep him off the field.

It has been questioned by many in the media recently if the 2023 World Cup in France would be a step too far for Vermeulen, who will be 37 when it kicks off, however Stander believes the stalwart still has plenty of juice in the tank.

Making parallels with Irish international Peter O’Mahony, Stander thinks it may be a similar situation for the two players.

“I played against Duane and trained with him a few times too. He’s a wily player,” said Stander.

“Duane reminds me of Peter, who’s playing exceptional rugby. A year or two ago the same reports about being too old were floating around about Peter and now he’s playing some of his best rugby. So you can’t write Duane off at all.”

Stander also thinks that Vermeulen’s move to Ulster was an important one in preparing him for next year’s showpiece event.

“One good thing I think he did was move to Ulster and get some northern hemisphere rugby in him,” explained Stander.

“He’s probably not getting managed as well as he would’ve in South Africa or Japan, but the experience will help him at the end of the day.”

In terms of World Rugby’s attempt to stop Rassie’s waterboy duties with a global trial recently initiated to limit the number of non-playing personnel entering the field and specifically banning people with the Director of Rugby title, Stander thinks it isn’t really a problem.

“There are always ways around it,” claimed Stander.

“To have your coach, Director of Rugby or someone that is knowledgeable on the side of the field giving you that technical advantage, is an advantage.

“Loads of teams have coaches next to the side of the pitch, running water. It just depends who it is. So I don’t think they will ever clamp down on it completely.”

Stander continued: “When I was playing it was always good to get those messages on from someone who’s seeing the game from a different perspective. When I was playing we had defence coaches running around with water.”