Johann van Graan says his Bath Rugby side do not know how to give up.
Johann van Graan led Bath Rugby to a remarkable Investec Champions Cup success against Northampton Saints here at The Rec on Friday 10th April | Photo © Richard Briggs
The director of rugby’s comments came after the Blue, Black & White fought back from being 21 points behind twice in the first half to win a fabulous Investec Champions Cup quarter-final with Northampton Saints.
At Bath’s press conference following their 43-41 victory at The Rec on Friday 10th April, van Graan said: “That was some game of rugby. I think that’s what the Champions Cup’s about. Specifically, when you get to this stage of the competition, the best play the best.
“Credit to Northampton. I thought they were fantastic throughout the 80. That was some performance from them.
“Huge respect for [Saints’ director of rugby Phil] Dowson and for [Northampton head coach Sam] Vesty for the way they coach their team.
“So proud of [Bath captain] Ben [Spencer] and the team. We’re tough to beat. We don’t know how to give up.
“Many parts of this game but the most important is that we’re now through to the semi-finals of the Champions Cup, and privileged to be involved.
“I think we learned quite a lot out of the game at Franklin’s Gardens [in the Premiership] a season ago.
“We were 21-0 down and came back to 21-19.
“We actually took the lead in that game with one minute to go.
“They had a short kick-off, we conceded a penalty and Fin Smith kicked it [for a 35-34 win for the Saints], so it’s a moment in time.
“You’ve got to make sure when you go through multiple experiences, you learn from it, even the exact same position tonight.
“I think Northampton started pretty fast.
“We conceded a yellow card [Miles Reid ordered off in the third minute], and if you go down against them with one man, that’s pretty difficult.
“I thought the way we ended the first half, minutes 30 to 40, we dominated, and the try just on half-time gave us momentum.
“Very calm at half-time, credit to the players.
“We spoke about our defence, about our width and attack, that we need to get quick ball.
“Both sides lost some players due to injury and I think both sides adapted well.
“I think that scrum was a massive moment and then Ted [Hill] to score and Finn [Russell] to convert it…
“There’s still some work to do.
“As we’ve seen across the last nine months of rugby, whether it be club rugby, Test rugby, domestic rugby, rugby is 80-minute games and this was an 80-minute performance.
“We lost some key line-outs. But when you get to this stage, the contest, whether it be the contest in the scrum, the contest in the line-out, the contest in the kick-off, the breakdown, everything is a contest, you’re going to get some big moments both sides of the ball.
“Obviously, some work to do in the line-out. But across the 80, pretty happy with the work that Charlie [Ewels] and Ross [Molony] have done.
“The crowd was amazing. It just shows the value of home-crowd advantage.
“We’ve had two Premiership semi-finals here but I think in terms of a crowd pushing us through, that was as loud as I’ve heard.
“What a great place to play rugby, what a great place to coach.
“As we’ve shown tonight, it’s much nicer to play at home than away.
“I’m just glad that we’re through. We as a group have been through three years and nine months to get us to this point and I’m certainly loving this journey.”
Van Graan hailed fly-half Finn Russell, who scored a magnificent try and displayed ice-cold composure to kick a penalty and five conversions for a personal haul of 18 points.
“We’ve got some fantastic players in our group, and Finn is one of them,” said van Graan.
“I think he’s one of the players that I’ve coached that kind of sees it before it happens.
“There were many big moments in this game, both sides of the ball.
“We spoke in the week about speed of thought, and Finn certainly has speed of thought.”
