Hit by the stark reality that he had played his 50th and final Champions Cup match an emotional CJ Stander reflected on his impending move from Cape Town to Munster in October 2012.
Nine days before his arrival in Limerick, Stander recalled watching Munster play Edinburgh in this competition, a match they won 33-0.
“I’m going to miss this place man. Before I arrived I remember watching a European game here. I think we were playing Edinburgh, but just the flags and the tunnel, and just sitting at home and thinking ‘I would love to run out here one day’,” recalled Stander, his voice breaking.
“Yea, today was special, to be captain of a side like this. It would have been great to get some silverware but it’s not to be for me or Billy, but they are going to get some silverware and I can’t wait to sit in this stand with a full 26,000 and watch that happen.”
Stander would make his European debut off the bench in a defeat away to Edinburgh a year later, before sampling his first experience of playing in front of a capacity Thomond Park a week later in a win over Gloucester.
Durable
Since then, the durable Stander has missed only three games in the competition.
Regrets, Stander will of course have a few, although the pride he felt in the team’s performance was palpable as, in his own inimitably polite way, was his frustration with some of Wayne Barnes’ calls.
“I’m proud of the boys, I’m proud of the effort we put in. It was a tough week, a very, very tough week to come back from a loss like that and you could see the squad really dug deep.
“We have a special coaching staff, the backroom staff really pushed the team during the week and just kept a positive vibe, and you could see it today. We came out firing, we were unlucky with a few calls, we scored some brilliant tries.
“If we would have got the win I don’t think anything would have changed for me really because I’m so proud of the team and I’m proud of the effort. I think we gave it our best shot, we really stuck it to them. We were just unlucky with a few calls.”
Meanwhile, 25 years on from Toulouse winning the inaugural European Cup with a side featuring the great Emile Ntamack, his son Romain played a key part in a victory which has been hailed as one of the finest in this illustrious club's history in this competition.
“We kept repeating all week that we knew the story between Munster and Stade Toulouse in the European Cup. It was always great matches that entered the legend of the competition. Even today, it did not fail, I think we had an exceptional match.
“This team succeeded very little in Toulouse, which had never won at Thomond Park. We wanted, with this group, to write our history. We had the almost perfect match to win. We are very proud of it, even if the road is long. It’s a great step forward.”
Toulouse appeared to be wilting at times in the second and third quarters but, with Ntamack landing eight kicks out of 10 for a 20-point haul, they recovered from a 16-9 deficit at half-time to eventually pull clear with a 17-point blitz deep into the final quarter.
“We knew that this match was not going to be played in the first half and that we had to stick to the score, at least until 20 minutes from the end to make them doubt,” said Ntamack.
“We knew the contribution of our bench and, if the staff had made a 6-2 (split) this week it was so that our forwards push them to the maximum until end. The substitutes have done a tremendous job in the last 20 minutes. They clearly brought added value to the team. We won with 23 players.”
So Toulouse rather than Munster will face a trek to Clermont next weekend as they seek to reach the semi-finals for the third season in a row and keep alive their dream of becoming the first club to lift the trophy five times.
“We know this opponent by heart, who also knows us,” said Ntamack of Clermont. “We will try to study it well again, and it will once again be an international match. I hope we can repeat the feat there, playing our rugby.”
