Johann van Graan said that prop Thomas du Toit’s standout display for Bath Rugby against Saracens on Saturday 4th April showed yet again why he is one of the best players in the world.
Johann van Graan praised Bath Rugby prop Thomas du Toit for a superb performance in the Investec Champions Cup win over Saracens here at The Rec | Photo © Richard Briggs
Du Toit put in an immense shift after coming on as a replacement at the start of the second half, helping the Blue, Black & White recover from 10-0 down to record a 31-22 victory in the Investec Champions Cup Round of 16 and set up a home quarter-final against Northampton Saints on Friday 10th April.
At Bath’s post-match press conference, head of rugby van Graan said: “We had to adapt to quite a few situations on the pitch and we elected to go against the wind in the first half and Saracens played some really good rugby.
“And I thought all credit to the players, the way we adapted after half-time.
“It’s always 23-man effort, and we select our group every week in a particular way.
“For us, we want to make sure that we play an 80-minute game and I think we adapted pretty well in that first half.
“We made some tactical changes at half-time and I thought Thomas was fantastic in that second half.
“If you look at his two years and nine months that he’s been at Bath, in my view he’s currently one of the best players in the whole world of rugby.
“And he showed it again today – absolutely phenomenal in the scrum, his defence and his attack, and that’s why you build a squad. You call on 23 guys on a weekend.
“We’ve managed the squad particularly well.
“Credit to the [international] players for the way that they came back after the Six Nations.
“Obviously we had one training session before the Saracens game [in the Gallagher PREM on Friday 20th March]
“After that game, we made 12 changes into the Sale game [in the PREM on Sunday 29th March] and all of the [international] players got a nine-day break, which was fully deserved after the Six Nations, and they all got stuck in and we made 13 changes this week.
“It doesn’t matter who you pick, the squad performs.
“We’ll make sure that we take our time and we plan for what we need against Northampton and use our squad again because, ultimately, this is about more than 15 or 23 players.
“This is about a squad and you’ve seen it in the PREM Cup, you’ve seen it in Europe, and you’ve seen it in the Premiership, we believe in the squad. You need more than 23 players.”
However, van Graan said that he had not given much thought to the Champions Cup quarter-final at that stage, such had been his focus on the rather more pressing Round of 16 clash.
“I haven’t given that a lot of thoughts with the coaches,” he said of the Northampton match.
“I planned the big picture, all the what-ifs, and obviously one of the two options after today is either the Champions Cup finish or you move on.
“But we’ll have to go and look at our game, take the learnings from it.
“We took quite a bit of learnings a few months ago when we played Northampton here [the Saints won 41-21 at The Rec in PREM Round 8 on Saturday 27th December].
“It was a crazy game last night [Northampton beating Castres Olympique 49-41 in the Champions Cup Round of 16 on Friday 3rd April], two very good teams, and it’s again knockout in six days’ time.
“So we’ll go and take our time. I think [it’s] important for us to just breathe for 24 hours.
“It’s the first time that we as a group have got into this position in this competition, and from a club point of view for a very, very long time [11 years].
“Northampton are a fantastic team and both teams are currently playing some fantastic rugby. I’m sure it’ll be a fantastic contest on Friday evening.
“The history of this competition tells you, world sport tells you, it’s a lot easier to play home. We don’t have to travel but Northampton have had the extra day [between the Round of 16 and quarter-final].
“We as coaches will obviously sleep well tonight and then start planning in detail tomorrow [Sunday 5th April] and the players will come in on Monday, one training session on Tuesday.”
With Saracens’ director of rugby Mark McCall standing down at the end of the season after 15 glittering years in charge, van Graan hailed his old friend and rival.
“The two of us get along very well,” said van Graan, “and in terms of what he’s achieved as a coach in the Premiership, in Euro, is remarkable, really.
“When I was the coach at Munster, we had some big battles and in the last few years we’ve had some amazing battles, but he’ll go down as a legend of European rugby.
“[Bath skipper] Ben [Spencer] was part of that amazing Saracens team.
“I think Mark is a real rugby man, always honest, always respectful, and I can only speak in the highest regards and whole lot of respect.”
