CJ Stander could be forgiven for mislaying the plot on Ireland’s history with the grand slam. In his excitement over being on the verge of the championship’s top prize he reckoned this kind of opportunity comes along once every 40 years. In 2009, when Ireland won their last – and second – clean sweep Stander was still in South Africa, not yet 19, and a distance removed from even a Currie Cup debut with the Bulls.
Last Saturday night, however, surrounded by team-mates and partners and watching the rest of the room wade into the post-match celebrations, the Munster No 8 was struggling to come to terms with it all.
Ireland reach new heights and make New Zealand game an enticing prospect | Robert Kitson
“To win a championship with a game in hand is a great achievement and I will never take that away,” he says. “I’ve never had it – it’s my first senior win ever in my life. I felt inside I wanted to flip the table and dance on it! But I knew we had another game to go and it’s something that comes every 40 years so it’s something special. We need to make sure that we keep it inside. If you can get this right, then the celebrations on Sunday are going to be great.
“A championship was one of my main goals. I’ve been in a lot of finals, a lot of semi-finals, a lot of groups that got there and didn’t have it. Last year against Scarlets, last year against Saracens – it’s tough. Glasgow four years ago up in Belfast was tough on a provincial level.
“When you get into this group, and as a new guy in my first two years, you just try to play well and fill in, and then you get to a point where you feel you can give something back to the group and back to the other players. You want to start winning things because you know that people talk that way, train that way. To win something, I didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh.”
Emotionally he should be clearer at close of business in Twickenham on Saturday, where Rob Kearney is expected to be fit to start. Between now and then Stander can focus on exploiting the problems England have had over the last two rounds.
“They’ve got a lot of great players and maybe some small things have just crept in, like at the breakdown, which has slowed down their game,” he says. “They’re still managing the game well and ending the game well, but other teams have managed to compete well against them at the breakdown.
“We’ve looked already at what they’re doing. We know a lot of their players from the Lions tour and we’ve watched what they’ve been doing in the championship. We know what we want to do against them.
“I trained a lot with them with the Lions. When they get on the field, they switch on. They’re physical. Mako [Vunipola] has hands; Maro [Itoje] is one of the most powerful I’ve played against and played with. Dan Cole is another guy who works hard and loves his scrummaging. Owen Farrell runs the whole thing.
“They’ll be angry with themselves for sure at how they left it out there. It’s going to be 23 angry Englishmen for sure. Last year we had let ourselves down against Scotland [in the first round]. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and England did as well. It’s difficult to win away from home. You need to make sure you deal with the pressure and win all the small battles. Look after your ball. If you give them the ball with turnovers, their back line is going to punish you.”
Stander knows a bit about punishment, having been sent off in his first game back in South Africa, with Ireland, in 2016. His recovery from that setback has been impressive. He will want a grand slam to polish that off.