Win breakdown battle, Joe Schmidt urges CJ Stander

Joe Schmidt has thrown down the gauntlet to Ireland debutant CJ Stander to prove he belongs in Test rugby by surviving a white-hot breakdown battle with Wales’s experienced, all-British & Irish Lions back-row tomorrow.

Stander, 26, has been given an international debut at the first opportunity since qualifying for Ireland on residency last November, three years after leaving his native South Africa for Munster. Yet there will be no gentle introductions at blindside flanker where Stander will fill the injured Peter O’Mahony’s boots just as he has at provincial level in assuming the Munster captaincy.

Not only will the former Springbok U20 captain come face to face with a Welsh trio of Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and Taulupe Faletau, Stander, Munster team-mate Tommy O’Donnell and Jamie Heaslip must also compensate for the loss of O’Mahony and openside flanker Sean O’Brien, who failed to pass fit having reported a tight hamstring in training earlier this week.