Stander: Structure and breakdown key for Munster

Munster’s CJ Stander has praised his team’s structure, breakdown speed and bench quality as key to their 22-10 victory over Racing Metro 92 in their final Champions Cup Pool 1 match.

Tries from Simon Zebo, Ronan O’Mahony and Ian Keatley, supported by the kicking of Tyler Bleyendaal, were pivotal as Munster made sure of a home quarter-final against a dogged Racing, and man of the match Stander was full of praise for his team's efforts post-match.

“It was a tough game and Racing came here to prove a point. That’s two tough games in a row in this competition,” said Stander.

“We really stood up from one to 23, Dave Kilcoyne really stood up when he came off the bench.

“I think our structure and our energy (won the game). And last week we were disappointed with our breakdown play. We tried to look after Conor Murray this week. I think those things won us the game, we tried to get the ball back from the breakdown better. So we got a few quick balls and it was good.”

Owing to the postponement of the away fixture against Racing due to last year’s untimely death of Anthony Foley, today marked the third of three successive Champions Cup weekends for Racing, and Stander admitted post-match the trio of ties had been a drain on the squad.

“It was tough to play three big games back to back to back. Playing against top international players, it’s been tough, everyone’s bodies took a bit of a bang,” said Stander. “But we recovered well last Monday and only started training on Tuesday so that was good planning by Rassie Erasmus.

“We all work hard for each other and there’s something special in this team. We’re going well so far.”

Munster are beginning to look like one of the potential winners of this tournament heading into the knock-out stages but Stander kept to the public relations hymn sheet in downplaying his team’s chances and focusing on the next game to come.

“There’s a few weeks still to go (in this competition) and we just need to concentrate on who is next and just plan on playing them,” said Stander.

“We just need to keep our physicality and passion for each other. We also feel we can’t disappoint our fans and want to make them happy.”

Photo: Inpho/Ryan Byrne

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