Lilley credits van Graan after Bath bag place in PREM Cup semis

Mark Lilley will go down in history as the man who guided Bath Rugby to this season’s PREM Rugby Cup semi-finals – but he was quick to hand a lot of the credit to Johann van Graan.

Mark Lilley, Bath Rugby’s de facto head coach for the current block of PREM Rugby Cup matches, has praised Johann van Graan, the club’s head of rugby, for his input during the vital victory over Gloucester Rugby here at The Rec on Saturday 28th February | Photo © Richard Briggs

Lilley, the club’s academy lead coach, was put in charge by Blue, Black & White head of rugby van Graan for the current block of PREM Cup matches and has overseen three victories from four games, the latest coming against Gloucester Rugby on Saturday 28th February.

That run of results – it also included wins over Sale Sharks and Bristol Bears and a loss to Exeter Chiefs – enabled Bath to finish second in Pool A and secure a last-four encounter at Leicester Tigers on Sunday 8th March.

At the Blue, Black & White’s press conference after the 38-26 success against Gloucester at The Rec, Lilley praised van Graan, who was on the pitch with the players during the warm-up and on the touchline during the match.

When Lilley was asked by the Echo if the success against the Cherry & Whites was all down to him, he said: “Definitely not all down to me.

“It works well with Johann. He gives me my space, but he’s also there when I need to talk to him on different things.

“When we picked up that yellow card [prop Francois van Wyk was sin binned in the 52nd minute], you’ve got a plan in place and things change pretty quickly.

“So always useful to have him [van Graan] there, coaching specific areas of the game and trying to look at the bigger picture of the game.

“It’s pretty tough so he’s there when I need to speak to him.”

Bath’s policy in the PREM Cup prior to last weekend’s match was to give lots of youngsters opportunities to play.

But a far stronger matchday 23 – including 10 players with senior international experience – was utilised by the Blue, Black & White against Gloucester.

Lilley said: “I spoke last week on Johann. He’ll plan these selections – pre-planned.

“It’s important to get these [experienced] guys minutes going into what they’ve got coming up [in the Gallagher PREM and Investec Champions Cup].

“And you look at the [young] guys [who played in the previous three PREM Cup rounds in February], they went three hard games in a row, so you probably need to freshen some people up.

“So those guys [the experienced men who played against Gloucester] needed some minutes, and it fell on this weekend.”

Lilley praised Max Ojomoh who made a fine display at fly-half against the Cherry & Whites, having turned out at full-back against the Bears a fortnight earlier.

“It’s really impressive to be able to just slot in and perform at each of those positions,” said Lilley.

“We’ve seen him at full-back, we’ve seen him at 10 today – unbelievable.

“His rugby IQ is outstanding and he performed really well at 10.”

But Lilley also praised the dozens of players who contributed across all eight of Bath’s pool matches for getting the club into the semis.

“I think if you look at the week, the leadership we’ve got out there, the week sort of looks after itself,” said Lilley.

“I thought the group have been outstanding. And the non-23 boys have really prepared this group to play. It’s been a massive squad effort.

“We’ve had 51 players play in this competition. And the guys have stuck together and put another good performance out there.

“I thought the [opening] 10 minutes was a tough first 10 minutes. We lost a bit of momentum.

“Pleased with how we got ourselves back into the game.

“I thought some of our aerial stuff was really good and that gave us some opportunities to attack off the back of it, if you look at Joe [Cokanasiga] and Horse [Will Muir] in the air, and then we scored some outstanding tries off the back of that.

“Every time we got close to that try-line, it looked like we were going to score.

“We looked powerful. I think clinical is definitely the right word.”

Looking ahead to the clash with the Tigers at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, Lilley said: “What a semi-final that’ll be.

“Welford Road away – it’s a great place, great atmosphere.

“In terms of the support up there, we know it’ll be pretty hostile.

“We’re really excited about it.

“The lads have got a couple of days off now to freshen up and recover and then another exciting week ahead of us.”