CJ Stander would not have wanted to face the media, not after a sound 25-14 beating like this.
He would not have wanted to but he still stepped forward. He left a dejected dressing room behind and took his seat in front of the dictaphones, microphones and a room full of unimpressed faces.
Munster are capable of winning in Dublin. They last took Leinster scalp, at the Aviva Stadium, in 2014. They had a good week on the training pitch and fancied their chances against a Leinster side coming to the boil but not quite there yet.
They were not blown away today but they lost, and deservedly so.
He visibly winced when he was informed Munster had turned over the ball 13 times. “You can’t win a game off that,” he remarked.
One stand-out moment in the game involved Stander, with ball in hand, driven back five metres by a charged up Jordi Murphy. He kept making the carries, though, and you could not fault his attitude on an extremely frustrating day. Surely, though, he expected to push Leinster further?
“These games are always close,” he responded.
“We gave them two tries [off turnovers]; that’s 14 points. If we cut those out it’s even closer and it’s game on. It’s stuff we have to fix.”
Stander answered every question that was put his way and tried to accentuate the positives ahead of next Saturday’s Champions Cup away date with Racing 92.
“We’re not going to Paris on a high,” he conceded. “This [defeat] is going to hurt us. Next week there will be bitterness in us. We’re going to use that going into Paris.”
Frank, honest views from Munster’s CJ Stander #LEINvMUN pic.twitter.com/TFqTYvnxdm
— SportsJOE.ie (@SportsJOEdotie) October 8, 2016
With his top table duties done, Stander looked around the room and asked if there were more questions. Then, aware that there was a young rugby fan at the press conference, Stander asked if he had anything to ask.
“Young man… Where is he? Does he have a question.”
The young lad – still thrilled from throwing out a question to Leo Cullen – was off looking for Leinster players.
Stander is one of rugby’s genuine gents. He is smarting from this loss but he has not forgotten his rugby values.
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