RUGBY INTERVIEW PETER STRINGER:Peter Stringer has nothing to prove but he is more than happy to prove it all again as he faces a mouth-watering tie against Toulon, writes Keith Duggan
‘Say nowt, win it, then – talk your head off” is one of the many nuggets of wisdom attributed to the late Brian Howard Clough. In a different time and a different sport, Peter Alexander Stringer has won it all several times over. But even now, it is not his nature to talk his head off.
Fortunes turn fast in sport. An awkward injury to the thumb of Tomás O’Leary has plucked the Munster veteran if not from obscurity then at least back to the bright lights. Stringer was a ubiquitous presence on the Munster (and Ireland) rugby teams until suddenly he wasn’t and because sporting interest is inevitably fixated on the next event, the next game, he has found himself labouring in the shadows in recent years.
Recalled to the Munster team to play against London Irish last weekend, Stringer had not started a European Cup game for the province since that epic semi-final encounter with Leinster in 2008.
The pendulum has swung in favour of the city team since that match and Stringer was the veteran perhaps most affected by the inevitable changes within the squad afterwards. O’Leary became first choice and played with a level of consistency and sharpness that Stringer must not only have recognised in himself and admired but also demanded from his team-mate. He had no choice but to adapt to the role of the reserve scrumhalf.
It must have been strange for a player who, since his breakthrough in 1998, closing in on the 200-caps milestone for Munster and 100 for Ireland, to suddenly find himself on the outside again, trying to break in. His return came suddenly and out of the blue and as Stringer talked about the feeling of being in the thick of things again, he spoke with the wonderment and enthusiasm of a player who had just made his debut.
“Yeah, last weekend was fantastic,” he said with undisguised happiness after a midweek training session at Thomond Park. “It has been a while since I started a Heineken Cup game and just to be involved in the build-up to a game was a great feeling. It was very emotional to be back in. It was very special and I cherished every minute I got on the pitch, so it was a great feeling.”
Not quite making the team is the toughest place in professional sport. Coaches accept – and preach – that nothing is better for players than game time. For the reserves, that creates its own dilemma. The only way to get on the team is to impress in training and in whatever minutes are given to you. But without game time, it becomes all the more difficult to be as sharply tuned as those who are playing week in and week out. In addition, confidence comes with playing. It is a safe bet that Stringer never took hearing his name being called out on the starting sheet for granted. But at the same time, he became accustomed to it. He was, for many seasons, the certain starter. Learning to live without that security brings its own demands.
“It has been difficult, I suppose, having not started a lot of games in the past couple of years. Every player needs a few games to get into the rhythm and get into the swing of things. I felt I was quite fit and I had a few games under my belt. It is just about maintaining fitness levels and keeping sharp at training and whatever opportunity you get on the pitch, whether it be 20 minutes or 15 minutes you have to make the most of it,” said Stringer.
“Then staying sharp during the week and hoping that you get a little bit of a run so mentally it is quite tough. But things happen like this. Injuries happen to people and you get opportunities and you gotta be ready to take them.”
But it can’t be easy. He has not played All Ireland League games since the first-choice status shifted towards O’Leary, instead playing Ireland A and Magners League games and also using the full-on games that often constitute Munster training sessions now. But he has missed the absolute adrenaline rush of big European games. Players want to play; they thrive on the sense of belonging to the team and the sense of contributing. In that sense, the players who get to start week-in and week-out have the easier job.
The tougher task, the lonelier task faces those who give everything of themselves during the week but then find themselves in the shadows when the crowds come on Saturday. That has become Stringer’s role. When he broke through as an Ireland international, during the famous Warren Gatland purge prior to a make-or-break Six Nations game against Scotland in 2000, he made his debut with Ronan O’Gara. And in the years afterwards, both with Munster and Ireland, it was hard to imagine one without the other.
But that has changed and the crucial thing for Stringer is his mind has to be out there on the field. His role demands absolute attention without knowing when – or if – he will be called upon. It is, as David Wallace testified this week, a disconcerting experience because one minute you are watching the game as a spectator might and the next you are out there in the middle of it.
“It is a thing where you come from playing quite regularly in your career and you are there and have a match to focus on the weekend, sometimes then when you are not selected, that does become frustrating,” Stringer admits.
“The challenge is mentally to stay on top of it and to remain focused so that if you are called in the first five minutes of the game, you are ready. At first I found it frustrating but I learned to cope with it and refocus to be ready for every opportunity. I suppose our training sessions have become very physical in the last couple of seasons and we work hard on our fitness so we tend to have matches in training sessions and you try to get involved as much as you can to keep yourself as sharp as possible in every aspect of your game.
“I am constantly working on passing and kicking in pressure situations to try and replicate the match scenario. So it is just about staying on top of things as best you can.”
And Stringer doesn’t say this but what it also requires, surely, is huge mental strength. When you have the heavily embroidered résumé he does – not just the season after season of first-choice starts but the big moments – that European Cup final try against Biarritz, the tap tackles, the general feistiness, frustration can lead to annoyance which can lead to disillusionment and so on. It takes, bluntly put, the ability to master prideful thought; to be willing to prove yourself all over again.
Stringer’s quandary is increased by the fact he plays such a specialist position. His adventures in positions other than scrumhalf have been few and far between.
“I had to come on the wing in a pre-season game a few years ago but that was pretty much it,” he grins. Asked if pure impatience had ever pushed him towards thinking of playing another position, Stringer looks across the room and offers a polite but firm response: “No.” He is a scrumhalf to the bone.
He grimaces slightly when conversation turns to the London Irish match. It was a typical cup contest, tough and somewhat breathless, often untidy and always fierce. Yet again, Munster left the field having given a typically honest account but bemused to find that their set-pieces had not gone so smoothly.
“We found ourselves with a lot of live ball, a lot of unstructured play,” Stringer notes.
The old Munster aura of control was lacking; they had to think on their feet and left it perilously late before managing to extract something tangible from the game through that late try and bonus point. It was not the perfect return to the first team but at least Munster finished the game on the front foot.
“The pace of the game . . . I think everyone noticed a massive change in tempo and pace. It think the first half was phenomenally quick, even more so than normal. It is . . . It is just a step up and it probably took a bit of adjusting to the game and we had to adjust our game plan a wee bit. We addressed that in training today. It was quite tiring in the first 25 minutes but I think guys got accustomed to it in the second half and got a second wind and we were more comfortable with it.”
You can guarantee that today will give Peter Stringer the tingles. Toulon at Thomond Park: it is a mouth-watering October club fixture. Munster have used these days as a springboard into an entire season. There is added pressure on the number nine. He will be conspicuous merely because he is back, tenacious and familiar.
“We are fortunate to have two quality nines but Strings is one of the most respected players in our squad and he has always led from the front,” Donncha O’Callaghan remarked during the week.
“He takes that general’s role for us and is selfless, he gets us into the game. It is unfortunate for Tomás that he is out but from a forwards point of view, it is heaven to have Peter on the pitch.”
For Stringer, being on the pitch is its own kind of Heaven. He might have left Munster. Offers from elsewhere came in after his contract finished and he thought about it. He spoke with family and with the coaches and committed himself to Munster for a further two years.
Two weeks ago, as he went through his usual routine of drills, of staying sharp and staying positive, he probably did not imagine that he would be back in the thick of it quite so soon. But here it is.
The man has nothing to prove but he is more than happy to prove it all again.
