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CJ Stander admits lowest moment in career - and it's not the Japan loss

CJ Stander

CJ Stander has declared himself ready to play his third World Cup match in 11 days when Ireland face Russia in Kobe on Thursday.

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Ireland named the same pack for their first two Pool A clashes, the 27-3 win over Scotland and Saturday’s stunning 19-12 loss to Japan.

Stander started both matches at number eight, and could be pressed back into service to take on the Russians.

Ulster’s Jordi Murphy has joined the squad after Jack Conan was ruled out of the tournament with a broken foot, while the versatile Tadhg Beirne could well feature at lock as Ireland rotate resources where possible this week.

Asked if he is ready to throw himself straight back into battle after two gruelling encounters, Stander said: “Yes definitely, it’s the excitement of the World Cup.

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“This is what you want to do when you’re growing up, thinking about being part of a World Cup.

“So yes, recovery-wise we’re being looked after really well, we’ve got training on Tuesday, so we’ve got to make sure the body’s ready. So if I’m selected I’m good to go again.”

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Rob Kearney and Tadhg Furlong are expected to complete their head injury checks and be available to face Russia if required.

Rhys Ruddock can be expected to start in Ireland’s back-row should head coach Joe Schmidt look to freshen up his pack.

Should Murphy start too, that could ease the workload on the likes of Josh Van Der Flier and Peter O’Mahony.

Hailing Ulster flanker Murphy’s abilities on his arrival to join the squad, Stander said: “Jordi always fits right in, we’re looking forward to getting him back in.

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“He’s going to bring good balance a lot of energy to the back-row, with his ball-carrying. So we’re looking forward to having him in there.”

Japan shocked the globe for the second time in four years with Saturday’s victory over Ireland, to add another World Cup upset to their 34-32 “Brighton Miracle” triumph over South Africa in 2015.

Stander admitted it had been tough to stomach the surprise defeat, but insisted for him nothing will perhaps ever rival the low of being sent off against his native South Africa in 2016.

Asked where Saturday’s loss ranked in terms of career lowlights, Stander said: “It’s up there, I’d say it’s close to the bottom.

“My red card’s probably always going to be at the bottom.

“It’s something that’s probably good learnings in a place where you don’t get a lot of opportunity to get learnings.

“It’s just a few games we’ve missed the consistency we want now.

“We drive ourselves by high standards, so we’ve got to be consistent in our process and what we do.

“I believe we can attack well, build on the moments we have and use opportunities to put points on the board.

“Sometimes when you lose those moments against a team like Japan you’re going to get punished.

“So now we’ve got to look after the ball, make sure we stick with our process when we set down the attack plan, make sure we back what we’re doing.

“And just don’t give other teams entries into what we do.”

– PA

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AllyOz 1 day ago
Does the next Wallabies coach have to be an Australian?

I will preface this comment by saying that I hope Joe Schmidt continues for as long as he can as I think he has done a tremendous job to date. He has, in some ways, made the job a little harder for himself by initially relying on domestic based players and never really going over the top with OS based players even when he relaxed his policy a little more. I really enjoy how the team are playing at the moment.


I think Les Kiss, because (1) he has a bit more international experience, (2) has previously coached with Schmidt and in the same setup as Schmidt, might provide the smoothest transition, though I am not sure that this necessarily needs to be the case.


I would say one thing though about OS versus local coaches. I have a preference for local coaches but not for the reason that people might suppose (certainly not for the reason OJohn will have opined - I haven't read all the way down but I think I can guess it).


Australia has produced coaches of international standing who have won World Cups and major trophies. Bob Dwyer, Rod Macqueen, Alan Jones, Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones. I would add John Connolly - though he never got the international success he was highly successful with Queensland against quality NZ opposition and I think you could argue, never really got the run at international level that others did (OJohn might agree with that bit). Some of those are controversial but they all achieved high level results. You can add to that a number of assistants who worked OS at a high level.


But what the lack of a clear Australian coach suggests to me is that we are no longer producing coaches of international quality through our systems. We have had some overseas based coaches in our system like Thorn and Wessels and Cron (though I would suggest Thorn was a unique case who played for Australia in one code and NZ in the other and saw himself as a both a NZer and a Queenslander having arrived here at around age 12). Cron was developed in the Australian system anyway, so I don't have a problem with where he was born.


But my point is that we used to have systems in Australia that produced world class coaches. The systems developed by Dick Marks, which adopted and adapted some of the best coaching training approaches at the time from around the world (Wales particularly) but focussed on training Australian coaches with the best available methods, in my mind (as someone who grew up and began coaching late in that era) was a key part of what produced the highly skilled players that we produced at the time and also that produced those world class coaches. I think it was slipping already by the time I did my Level II certificate in 2002 and I think Eddie Jones influence and the priorities of the executive, particularly John O'Neill, might have been the beginning of the end. But if we have good coaching development programmes at school and junior level that will feed through to representative level then we will have


I think this is the missing ingredient that both ourselves and, ironically, Wales (who gave us the bones of our coaching system that became world leading), is a poor coaching development system. Fix that and you start getting players developing basic skills better and earlier in their careers and this feeds through all the way through the system and it also means that, when coaching positions at all levels come up, there are people of quality to fill them, who feed through the system all the way to the top. We could be exporting more coaches to Japan and England and France and the UK and the USA, as we have done a bit in the past.


A lack of a third tier between SR and Club rugby might block this a little - but I am not sure that this alone is the reason - it does give people some opportunity though to be noticed and play a key role in developing that next generation of players coming through. And we have never been able to make the cost sustainable.


I don't think it matters that we have an OS coach as our head coach at the moment but I think it does tell us something about overall rugby ecosystem that, when a coaching appointment comes up, we don't have 3 or 4 high quality options ready to take over. The failure of our coaching development pathway is a key missing ingredient for me and one of the reasons our systems are failing.

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