Ireland’s success down to collective effort, says CJ Stander

Ireland players spoke about honesty of endeavour, integrity of effort and an unshakeable belief in a gameplan and one another as key components that underpinned a courageous, if fraught, 27-24 victory over Australia at the Aviva stadium.

In describing the game, they inadvertently alighted on a couple of the character traits that CJ Stander espouses irrespective of the colour of jersey he is wearing. He carries, he tackles, he slows ball down, all the while communicating and exhorting, demanding no more of his team-mates than the standards he personifies.

When Jamie Heaslip was called ashore on 61-minutes after an astonishing two and three quarter games in the November Test series, Stander moved to number eight from blindside flanker. There was one moment soon after that epitomised his effectiveness.

Ireland had a scrum in the 22, the Aussies managed to get a little nudge and wheel on but despite this, Stander scooped up the ball and made a metre or two, which in the circumstances was as good as 50 in some respects.

Conor Murray cleared and the Ireland players set themselves again, to repel the golden hordes.

Stander referred to the injuries that stripped the team bare but how they players that came in successfully shouldered the workload.

He spoke about how proud he was of his team-mates, the discipline shown in not conceding penalties under massive pressure and the willingness of every player to buy into whatever decision was made.

In the latter respect he cited by way of example, captain Rory Best’s decision to go to the corner with penalties three times early on.

‘Bit of momentum’

“In the last few games we went out and attacked the teams. We felt there was a bit of momentum and we needed to make the most of it. In fairness to Jacko (Paddy Jackson) and Rory (Best) they called to go to the corners, we backed that and went with it.”

He did acknowledge that the failure to collect points in that period galvanised the visitors and it will be a work-on going forward.

“Our maul was unbelievable in the last few tests. Today it was up there but we just need to secure the ball and make sure we get points out of it.”

“There is a belief that if we go for the corner we will go on and get points out of it. I think there were a few plays where we let ourselves down but luckily it worked out at the end.”

Ireland's discipline has been remarkable in the two Tests against New Zealand and Saturday's win over Australia, 11 penalties conceded is a remarkable tally given the calibre of the opposition.

Stander explained: “We can drive that as a collective. If you can keep a team below 10 penalties in a game you have a good chance of winning but if you can keep it lower than five then the chance of winning is way up there.

"We work for each other, work hard, don't let ourselves down and (the team) by giving away silly penalties. It is a collective thing that we have worked on coming out of the (2016) Six Nations where we made a few bad decisions at the breakdown or went offside. It's a big thing we worked on and it's (penalty count) a good stat."

He accepted that Ireland needed to manage big leads a little better.

“It is something we spoke about a lot. We need to clamp down on that (because) we didn’t make it easy for ourselves.”

There is momentum though by dint of the results heading into the Six Nations Championship. Stander admitted: "We could have won a few more games, (I'm) thinking back to South Africa and the second Test against New Zealand (where) we let ourselves down but we can take confidence out of this (win). (If) we work hard as a collective, we can beat (any) team."