CJ Stander ready to put on a show for Joe Schmidt

By Charlie Mulqueen

CJ Stander and Peter O’Mahony, two of the heroes of Ireland’s Grand Slam glory last season, are fully aware they cannot rest on their laurels given the host of outstanding Leinster back-row challengers for their international jerseys.

And that’s just one of several reasons why Munster are desperate to produce their best performance of the season against their greatest rivals at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday. The 26-times capped Stander knows just how high the stakes can be.

“You firstly need to produce for your team and if you do that, you’ll be picked (for your country),” he accepts. “It’s a difficult place but a place I like to be, a place where you can lay down your marker. All of us want to be there. You need competition to improve.”

And perhaps with that logic in mind, Stander is adamant Munster can produce only their second win over Leinster at the Aviva in a decade.

We’ve worked with our coaching staff now for a good few months, we have a pre-season under our belt and we’ve quality players in positions that we’ve needed, they’ve come in and pushed the rest of the team,” he said referring to Joey Carbery, Tadhg Beirne, and Alby Mathewson.

“It’s an interpro: it doesn’t matter what the expectations of the public or supporters are. We know we’ve got to produce and to test ourselves against the best team in Europe. To go up there just to play is not going to be acceptable. We play this game to win.

“The last time we played them at the RDS, we lost by one point. We almost got to a point where we could have won the game.

“There were a lot of things; we could have gone to the posts or whatever during the game.

“Sometimes we went up there in the last few years and tried to reinvent the wheel and it didn’t come off. Leinster were just unbelievable last year. Anything we tried, they just put us under pressure and the game they played was exactly what we couldn’t stop. They came down to Thomond Park and gave us a hiding. They can do it week in week out and they proved it over the weekend (away to Connacht). It’s the biggest challenge we are going to have.”

And what makes Leinster’s achievements all the more remarkable is the manner in which Leo Cullen can chop and change his team selections with little or no impact on their overall performances.

“Leinster have a lot of depth, it doesn’t matter who they pick, they are always going to pitch up,” Stander said.

We’ve seen that when we played them at the RDS. They changed a lot of players and still produced on the day.

“I think it’s a big challenge between two big provinces. It is a big rivalry. From our side again, we just want to go up there and make sure we are consistent and play our game because we know they are going to be at their very best.

“And then there’s our away form. It’s something we need to improve on, to start the season well and win your away games to make sure you get yourself into a place where you can get a home semi-final in the PRO14 and Europe. We know we need to do a lot better on the road.”

Saturday’s game is the first of three massive games, the outcome of which may well define Munster’s entire season.

After Leinster, they are away to Exeter and at home to Gloucester in the European Cup.

“We have four big games with Ulster behind us already that are going to be massive for our season,” Stander agreed. “It’s something the coaches have planned for. There are certain blocks and you know which games you’re going to have. These next three or games are big.”