'I said to Bruce...': The Bath message as fans finally dare to dream

The Gallagher Premiership fixtures organisers have been up to their mischievous best this Easter. Not since Bath last reached the final in 2015 has there been such optimism generated about the club last crowned champions of England way back in 1996.

After too many years in the doldrums, they are finally daring to dream again. Last Sunday’s late-game flourish accelerated them beyond Sale at The Rec, leaving them two points shy of leaders Northampton heading into this weekend’s round 14 (the gap is now seven after Saints picked off Saracens on Friday night).

Twickenham is where Bath fans hope their ultimate destination is on June 8 and this Saturday, they tantalizingly play within touching distance of English Rugby HQ as Harlequins at the nearby Stoop is their latest assignment.

Bossman Johann van Graan was initially full of coach-speak in the midweek build-up, insisting that the campaign for his team was game-by-game, week-by-week etc.

The usually guarded South African opened up, though, when asked by RugbyPass if he had a message for the success-starved Bath supporters who would give anything to be watching their team on the other side of Chertsey Road in 10 weeks.

“The number one for me when I came to Bath was it’s a rugby city, it has got incredible support and what struck me about the Bath supporters is they are all over the world,” he enthused, allowing himself a moment in the shoes of fans giddy over the potential of van Graan’s team with Finn Russell now pulling the strings.

“At away games you will always see Bath supporters. The Toulouse game (in Europe) was an example, there were so many of them. The number one thing we, as a group, wanted was to become tough to beat and show pride in this jersey and pride in this club.

“I believe our supporters have seen that and they have responded. They have been magnificent in their support. Every weekend The Rec becomes louder, and people are singing more. I said to Bruce (Craig, the club owner) after the game last Sunday that my biggest satisfaction was afterwards seeing Bath people happy and enjoying their rugby.

“As a supporter that is what you want to do – you want to see your team give everything on the pitch and, win or lose, you are proud of them. I can certainly say that I’m proud of the players and I’m proud to be the coach of this club, and the message is we are going to try and get better every week. I always believe that the best is yet to come and we are loving what we are doing.”

So stitched has van Graan become in the Bath tapestry since his 2022 arrival from Munster, RugbyPass spotted him, his wife, and their young family seated in the main stand at The Rec living every bounce of the ball as fans when the riverside stadium recently staged the England versus Ireland U20s game.

“Yeah, that was very cool actually,” he beamed. “I don’t get to watch a lot of games with my family. It was so nice because there were some of my Irish friends and their families involved in the 20s, and it was so nice to experience The Rec from a supporter's point of view.

“We did the walk-up and we ate in the city, had some good time. My lads played a bit of ball afterwards and then on the Sunday, we went to watch the French take on the Welsh in Cardiff. Look, we love our rugby as a family and it’s brilliant to watch at The Rec from a supporter's point of view. So yeah, it was really nice.”

This understanding of what it's like to be on the terraces at Bath will help to ensure the coach won’t take his eye off the ball with so much Premiership rugby yet to play, as well as next weekend’s round-of-16 Investec Champions Cup tie at Exeter. That’s another competition where there has been a considerable Bath drought, the club’s sole success occurring in 1998.

“I believe that we have come a long way very quickly,” he said later last Wednesday when two questions from TNT Sports wrapped up his media briefing ahead of the Harlequins trip. “The reason why I believe that is because we started a process, so we have gone through the steps of the process quicker than anticipated.

“The fundamentals of the game needed to be set: we needed to become fitter, we had to understand how we wanted to play the game, get a clear understanding of that.

"We have become better in different areas; ie, our attack but our defence hasn’t gone backwards and our set-piece hasn’t gone backwards and when it really mattered last Sunday, it was our scrum and our maul that pulled us through.

“To me, that’s a sign of growth. We can win in different ways. Who knows what the future might hold but we are dreaming big dreams in a humble way and the squad is working hard. Ultimately you can only work hard and that hopefully puts you in a play-off position and then you hopefully can perform on that day.

“We haven’t achieved that yet and we have got some massive games coming up. It might be that for the next month we are away from home and then you hit Saracens at home (on April 26), but also you might get a home game in three weeks (in the European quarter-finals). Who knows? All we can control is what we are doing every day, and the group has been very consistent. I only ask that they enjoy it.

“For too long there has been this burden of the past in Bath and what happened in ’98, and people speaking of all the things that have gone wrong. We are doing a lot of things right and if we make a mistake, it’s next job, we’ll fix it and we’ll enjoy the next moment. We have a group of staff, players who are loving what we are doing.”

The 19-31 Champions Cup pool loss at Toulouse on January 21 was seemingly a very salient juncture in their journey. “The positive is week-on-week we are coming through difficult situations, we are winning games in different ways. We are not perfect and I don’t expect us to be perfect.

“This is a long-term journey but we are embracing the fact that we are becoming better. We are going to make no predictions of where we might end up but what was a positive step against Sale is after 67 minutes we came through it.

“We spent a long time talking about the Toulouse game; we lost the game but we won so many other things that day and that is where the consistency comes in. Beno Obano was over the line being held up and that’s the margins in sport. That ball was on the floor and we could have beaten Toulouse away.

“We lost the game but we learned so much and our group is starting to understand we don’t have to be perfect but that want to become a champion, you don’t become a champion on a specific day, you have got to be a champion every day and that will ultimately someday result in winning something. I can’t predict when that will be. We just want to become better and we are certainly improving mentally.”