CJ Stander warns there’s life left in enigmatic Racing 92
The Parisians have known they are out of the Champions Cup running since before Christmas and turned in an abject performance against Munster at Stade Yves du Manoir 10 days ago in their rescheduled round one fixture as Rassie Erasmus’s side brought home a bonus-point victory from the French capital.
Yet as Munster celebrated qualification for the knockout stages on Saturday night following their victory over Pool 1 rivals Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun, Racing showed signs of life as they put Leicester Tigers to the sword with a 34-3 home win.
That has put Stander, 26, on guard that there may be more fight left in the side visiting Limerick this weekend than first imagined, making Munster’s quest for a home quarter-final draw, which a win on Saturday would bring, a tougher proposition as they prepare for the final game of the pool stages.
“We still need to go out and work hard next weekend. It comes down to the day and how they pitch up,” Stander said.
One of Stander’s standout moments since he arrived at Munster from South Africa in October 201, was the 2014 quarter-final home win over Toulouse, when a sold-out Thomond Park crowd roared the team on to a rousing 47-23 victory over the four-time Heineken Cup winners. They are memories that increase the determination not to slip up this weekend in front of another capacity attendance.
“It’s a special place. The experience there, you get out there and it’s a sea of red and I’m massively proud to be in a set-up like this, where you see supporters that keep giving everything. That brings you back and makes you think about your game and the need to keep giving everything for them because they travel over here (to away games) and they’ll be in Thomond Park in full flight.
“I think everyone’s going to want to work hard to get back there (for a quarter-final). But on the flip side, if we don’t get there we’ll just keep on doing what we’re doing and keep up the hard work.”
Munster have been delivering in terms of work ethic, their narrow 14-12 victory at Glasgow a great example of commitment and guts making up for a below-par performance at Scotstoun.
“There’s a lot of players that stepped up. We missed a lot of players but everyone stepped in and even the young guys are stepping up and there are leaders in the team, ball carriers and in defence, I just think we work hard for each other.
“That’s the biggest thing we spoke about in pre-season, that we need to work for that jersey and we need to be proud to be in that team and work for each other. That’s what we try and create, to be proud in that jersey and work hard for it and put your hand up for every game.”
Stander said he was also driven each game by the desire to repay director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and his coaching staff for their efforts to prepare them for match day.
“He (Erasmus) just wants us to go out there and play our game and enjoy it in the first place. He wants you to try your best and try something and make it work and if we fail, well, if we’ve worked hard at it, he’s happy with it and if we go at it half-arsed he’s not happy.
“He’s a direct man, he wants the best for the team and he’ll always pick the best player to do that at that stage.
“He’s a guy that brings excitement but also he brings planning so we come in on a Monday to work hard for the week and come Saturday you just want to be physical and perform for him, Jacques (Nienaber), Felix (Jones) and Fla (Jerry Flannery) because they work so hard during the week to make sure we can perform on the weekend.”
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