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Munster's van Graan on the speculation that he is wanted by Bath
By Liam Heagney
Munster boss Johann van Graan has addressed recent speculation that he is being courted to take over at Bath, the struggling Gallagher Premiership club who kick off their latest Heineken Champions Cup campaign with a trip to Leinster this Saturday. The possibility of the ex-Springboks assistant joining the English club was something that first emerged in 2016 when Bath were moving on from Mike Ford.
Nothing came of the speculation on that occasion, Bath instead opting to appoint Todd Blackadder as their director of rugby and Tabai Matson as head coach. The club has now reportedly revisited that situation following their dreadful start to the current Premiership season and the knowledge that van Graan is out of contract at Munster next summer.
The Irish province is reportedly keen on keeping their South African on beyond his current deal but the fact that no agreement has yet been reached on that two-year offer has led to speculation that his future could be elsewhere, namely at Bath.
Van Graan has refused to add fuel to fire ahead of this weekend's trip to Wasps in the Champions Cup, the Munster boss stating at his midweek media briefing: “In terms of my own future, as I have stated earlier in the season, I’m never going to get into any contract discussions or speculation over the media. So until there’s a decision about my future, I’m not going to speculate anything.”
It was late 2017 when van Grann initially arrived at Munster, taking over after Rassie Erasmus decided to head home to take over the Springboks. So satisfied were the Irish with his initial work that the original deal penned by van Graan through to 2020 was extended a year early in 2019, taking him through to the end of the 2021/22 season.
Now, with assistant coach Stephen Larkham having already decided to return to Australia to take over at the Brumbies, it remains to be seen whether van Grann will stick with Munster or twist and explore options elsewhere such as Bath.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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