We've reached the stage it is newsworthy if a Munster player other than CJ Stander wins the Man of the Match award. It seems Stander is wheeled out to the media to collect his latest award after every single game, with last weekend's facile win away to Racing the latest in a long line of Munster games to bear Stander's indelible mark.
Stander has been speaking to the Irish Independent this week on this very topic, and has revealed what he is doing with all of these Man of the Match awards, and how they are ending up costing him a fortune. While he jokes in the interview that Simon Zebo reckons that he must be paying someone in return for such a remarkable haul, he does reveal that the continued recognition is costing him.
Stander told the Indo that he has room for about four awards on the mantelpiece at one time:
I move the new ones in, the old ones go away to the garage for when I have room for them. Normally, Jean-Marie [his wife] likes to fill them with flowers so I've started a system where I need to buy four bunches of flowers because there is four on the table at all times.
Four bunches of flowers every week, it's costing me at this stage.
Who said you can't put a price on success?
Munster will be hoping for another Man of the Match performance from Stander in the crunch European tie away to Glasgow on Saturday. The province are top of their pool, and victory will go a long way to ensuring progression to the knockout stages for the first time in three years.
Read the full interview with Stander here.
