‘Best still to come from CJ’
The 24-year-old South African, signed from the Blue Bulls two seasons ago, has overcome a difficult start to life in European rugby, but Munster are now seeing the rewards after a series of outstanding performances from the dynamic back rower.
Stander was man of the match in back-to-back games earlier this month against Scarlets in the Guinness Pro12 and the Champions Cup win at Sale Sharks, where he carried for 104 metres in a performance of power and physicality that continued into last Friday’s 14-3 win over Saracens.
Assistant coach Costello believes there is still more potential to be unlocked. “I don’t know where his ceiling is at the moment,” Costello said yesterday. “I’ve seen the rate of improvement over the last season and it’s been phenomenal.
“He came with a really high base around his power and his explosiveness and we were all really excited to sign a player like that. I think now he’s fine-tuned his game and polished some of the areas that he would have said himself he needed to improve on and I think we’re starting to see the benefits of that. I know there’s more to come because of how hard he works and I think we’ll find out over the next 12 months.”
With 10 fellow frontliners missing this week on Ireland duty and James Cronin adding to the injury list with an ankle problem suffered against Saracens, Stander may be required to add a leadership role for Saturday’s resumption of league action at Cardiff Blues, something Costello sees the former Springboks U20 captain fulfilling already.
“CJ is having an excellent season. There’s so many parts of his game that have improved. CJ’s very coachable. CJ takes on feedback extremely well and works incredibly hard on his game. He’s always doing extras at the end of training, he’s always involved in stuff here, all about improving, you know, his body height in the tackles, his body height in the carry. So what we’re seeing now is really the product of a year of really hard work.
“So on the back of his performances it naturally provides a lot of leadership. People want to see him carry the ball, they want to see him go forward and he has been one of our go-to figures. I think he had 19 carries against Sale which was a phenomenal performance at a time when we were struggling so absolutely, he’s providing huge leadership.”
Munster may be short-handed at the Arms Park this weekend against a Cardiff Blues side missing a mere five players on Wales duty by comparison but Costello is confident the Reds can cope with the imbalance.
“From our point of view we pride ourselves on having a lot of depth in our squad, more importantly not just depth but quality and that is why we put such focus on the ‘A’ competitions so that as senior coaches, not just the ‘A’ coaches, we have worked with the ‘A’ players over the last few weeks, we have been reviewing games with them, pushing on standards so that they are ready to go this week so we are very confident we can overcome it from our point of view.
As for the injured Cronin, Costello said the extent of his ankle problem would be assessed over the next week, putting his chance of further Test recognition next month in doubt.
“He may lose out on that opportunity depending on the severity of the injury, but Killer (Dave Kilcoyne) came off the bench (against Saracens) and did exceptionally well and both of them are playing really well at the moment and hopefully both of them will feature in the November series.”
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