Van Graan: Bath’s philosophy is bringing out the best in players

The philosophy of Bath Rugby is to bring out the best in players and ensure they have fun representing the club. So says head of rugby Johann van Graan, the man who led the Blue, Black & White to three trophies last season.

Johann van Graan says Bath Rugby’s philosophy is to bring out the best in players and ensure they have fun in Blue, Black & White | Photo © Richard Briggs

“Every coach has a different skill set and sees rugby in a different way,” said van Graan at the club’s pre-Gallagher PREM Round 4 press conference on Tuesday 14th October.

“What we’re trying to do at Bath is bring out the best in people and I pick players for what they can do because ultimately we as human beings feel good about the things that we can do.

“I remember in 2005 when Bryan Habana came to the Bulls [in South Africa]. He was fast and he had to work on a lot of things in his game, and through hard work, through a lot of coaching, determination, etc, he became one of the world’s best players, played 100 Test matches [for the Springboks].

“Identify the right players and they get better. I’ll give a great example of players at our club.

“There’s been a big amount of players that potentially in year one [of Johann’s reign, 2022-23] needed some skills to work on, but they all became champions and not because they won a trophy, because they worked on that skill for every single day over the last three years and we’ve become a well-rounded team.

“So see the best in people, make sure you recruit and retain the right players and then just make them better. That’s the big message at Bath – come here to get better, enjoy your rugby and absolutely love what you’re doing, and I think you can see that in our playing group.”

Bath sit top of the PREM table with three bonus-point wins from three outings.

As for how the season is panning out, van Graan said: “We’ll measure ourselves internally at the back end of May, which seems an eternity away from now. The season will ebb and flow.

“As we’ve seen, all clubs get injuries, you’ll get some good decisions, bad decisions. You’ll win some games you shouldn’t, you’ll lose some games that you should win. That’s the beauty of the game that we all love.

“We’re looking for improvement every week but certainly what we’ve learned over the last few years is you’ve got to be in contention at the back end of May, and we’ll know [at] the back end of May whether we’ve achieved that or not.

“We always respect the opposition on the pitch because this game has taught us a lot of lessons and anything can happen on the day.

“But we just embrace whether we play at The Rec or anywhere else. We actually enjoy each other’s company so much. When we get on the bus it’s like ‘Can we get to the hotel? Can we spend some time together?’ whether it’s a walkthrough, whether it’s a meeting or whether it’s watching rugby on a Friday night together. It’s all about loving it.

“What I’m looking for mostly is that the players are having fun, they’re getting better and they’re loving their time with the club because we’ve all got one career and you want to spend it at a place where you love being, and this playing group and staff loves being here.

“We’ve become comfortable over the last three years to be called favourites by people outside.

“Whether we are or not we’ve spent the last 40 Premiership rounds in the top four, which is something that shows that we’ve become consistent and that’s one of the things that we have become – whether we win or lose, we’re consistent and we’re just trying to get better.”

But the club have to look forward, believes van Graan.

“It’s [now] all about this season. And now all we have is Leicester [Tigers away] on Saturday at five minutes past three, and what will be will be,” he said. “This is year four and that’s the only thing we’re looking at.”