“I can’t walk the dog without it being a competition.”
This CJ Stander lad takes some beating but he knows he is, on rare occasions, beatable. That is, in essence, what drives him.
Never quit; never back down. That is what sees him take a crunching tackle from Kieran Read one moment before shaking it off and overpowering Jerome Kaino to score the next.
We knew Stander was good the moment he arrived in Ireland, a little under four years ago. He keeps getting better, though, and is keenly aware that the improvements can’t let up.
The newly crowned Rugby Writers of Ireland Player of the Year was a happy man, last night, but the challenges ahead – for Munster, Ireland and personally – were not far from his thoughts. He said:
“My dad always used to say to me, ‘Your boss is only getting born’ – that someone is stepping up to make life difficult for you. He used to say it in Afrikaans but it means that the guy who’s going to push you out of your position is only over your shoulder.
“So that’s a big drive for me not to think I’ve done enough. I just want to keep on performing for the team, that’s important for me, and lead a few teams.”
Competition for places in the Irish back row is massive. As blindside, Stander is holding off the likes of Peter O’Mahony, Iain Henderson, Josh van der Flier and Rhys Ruddock, to name just four.
It is a good thing, then, that Stander is as up for the fight as they come. Even his wife, Jean-Marie, is not safe from his competitive streak:
“If you go backwards in rugby you’re losing and for me it’s the same in life, you need to go forward in anything you do.
“Luckily, my wife knows that at this stage. We’re always in the same team because I can’t walk the dog without it being a competition, I need to win with my dog the first one into the door.
“I’ve got a good support system around me with my wife and my family. They’ll keep on pushing me, we’re pushing each other so it’s good to have a good support structure around you. I think I missed that when I left to come over here. I just had my wife who was brilliant but has been there all along but I missed that from my family, including my dad.”
Stander is excused from Munster duty this weekend but he will be back for the Champions Cup fixtures with Leicester Tigers in mid December. Munster have an unbelievably tough run of fixtures all the way until the end of January so it will be interesting to see if their Irish contingent – Stander included – have much left for the 2017 Six Nations.
Joe Schmidt and Andrew Trimble have already spoken about the Six Nations like they wish it could start this weekend. That attitude, Stander feels, has been fostered by six months that saw them account for New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and, with a completely new XV, Canada. On the All Blacks victory in Chicago, Stander says:
“The biggest thing is the belief, in yourself and the people around you. Everyone believes in one goal and one specific thing you have to go and do on the pitch; the belief in everything you do the whole week and that it’s going to work.”
He adds, “What I’ve learned in international rugby is that everything has to be instinctive.You can’t stop and think ‘I’m going to do this’ because while you’re thinking they’re doing something different. So everything has to be on instinct. All their players work on instinct and that’s why they had the edge for a while but now I’m looking forward to the next few seasons.”
Stander is relentless and he is exactly what his teams need right now.
Dick Clerkin makes his GAA Hour debut to talk about a wonderful career and argue passionately with Colm Parkinson over Sky Sports GAA. Subscribe here on iTunes.
