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Heyneke Meyer, like Johann van Graan, was a young coach with a limited playing career when he was given the Bulls job (Photo by Chris McGrath\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The man who wrote, framed and gave Meyer the poster was at his right hand for over 15 years. He had no elite playing career to speak of, no caps and trophies and battle scars to command the respect of his peers or turn the heads of world class athletes.<\/p>\n
What he did have was a remarkable eye for detail and the work ethic of a champion sportsman. He made himself an invaluable, indispensable part of the club fabric, so much so that Meyer immediately took him to the national set-up when he landed the coveted Boks job in 2012.<\/p>\n
Nearly thirty years since his first steps on the coaching ladder, he has crossed the equator, operated in the Munster<\/a> pressure cooker and taken the Gallagher Premiership<\/a> by storm. At only 45, he has three decades of top-end coaching experience. This meticulous, devout, resilient strategist stands now on the cusp of history, one match away from restoring Bath<\/a> to the summit of English rugby and completing an unprecedented treble of silverware. His name, is Johann van Graan.<\/p>\n Child of God, son of Loftus<\/strong><\/p>\n Van Graan was a 16-year-old schoolboy when Meyer first realised his staggering aptitude for the game. His father, Barend, was the union\u2019s long-standing CEO so Johann was forever walking the hallowed passages of Loftus Versfeld, retrieving balls for Naas Botha at kicking practice, quietly immersing himself in the machinations of the Northern Transvaal\u2019s sporting powerhouse.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were no computer systems or software \u2013 our analysis was all done by hand,\u201d Meyer remembers. \u201cWe would sit straight after the game with the VHS machine, freeze the tape, count the players, and write on a piece of paper with dots. It was about 12 hours of work. I still believe we were way ahead of the curve in those days.<\/p>\n \u201cJohann was always around trying to be involved in rugby. I needed someone else to help John McFarlane, our technical advisor, because it was too much work for one person. I started to get him involved and when he was finished he had to give feedback with John about what he saw.<\/p>\n \u201cI could see he was very knowledgeable even at 16. He was more than an analyst. He would come to me and say \u2018listen, I\u2019ve seen this guy getting 15 cleans but none are effective\u2019. He would show things to me which I didn\u2019t have time to go into such depth on, small things.<\/p>\n \u201cHe would come in every Saturday and Sunday working for me and we spent a lot of time together. He sat in on one-on-ones while we gave feedback. Straight out of school I employed him as my technical advisor, and moved John to defence coach.\u201d<\/p>\n There was no such thing as culture, mission statements were viewed as bulls**t. I remember we put a thing up which said \u2018Bulls, best team in the world\u2019, and everybody laughed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In those days, around the turn of the millennium, the Bulls were a pale shadow of the team who would claim the 2007 Super Rugby title and provide several titans of the world champion Springbok squad that same year. They finished dead last in 2002 and Meyer lost his job, dropping to lead the Currie Cup<\/a> team and steering them to four championships. Given the side\u2019s toil and his father\u2019s high office, Van Graan\u2019s involvement, formalised in 2003, prompted allegations of nepotism.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the Bulls struggled in the beginning, that was definitely there,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cHis father didn\u2019t appoint him; there was never pressure on me. I appointed him.\u201d<\/p>\n Meyer took his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 across the Atlantic, studying the top American sports teams, understanding their use of technology and sleek training bases. The men presented their findings to the Bulls board. They overhauled the facilities, and were among the first club rugby teams to use drones to film their training sessions. Van Graan yearned for innovation.<\/p>\n \u201cJohann worked on all my presentations, videos, team talks,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cWe had to beat Eddie Jones\u2019 Reds team by 72 points to go through to the 2007 play-offs and I told Johann what I wanted on the video. We took all the best highlights from all the players and showed it to them with a number 72 flashing the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n That was one foundation stone. The other was less tangible. Meyer has a psychology degree and always based his coaching on a culture-first bedrock. In this, too, Van Graan was pivotal.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody wanted to come to the Bulls at first,\u201d he says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have money, we didn\u2019t have the sea like the Stormers \u2013 it was very difficult to recruit.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was no such thing as culture, mission statements were viewed as bulls**t. I remember we put a thing up which said \u2018Bulls, best team in the world\u2019, and everybody laughed. We worked on that and how we would get there. We would go away and do little competitions within the team, and Johann would film that, write out what we said, put it on the boards for me.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided we were going to build an unbelievable culture. Ultimately nobody wanted to leave the Bulls. We had Victor Matfield<\/a>, Bakkies Botha<\/a>, Danie Rossouw<\/a> and Fourie du Preez<\/a>, who didn\u2019t want to leave. We believed in culture before game plans. If you have that, it becomes easy.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Graan learned the nuances of lineouts from the totemic Matfield. The value of calm amidst the chaos was instilled by Du Preez, the genius scrum-half Van Graan still rates as the finest player he has ever coached. His years running water and relaying messages as the interface between general and soldiers sharpened his instincts. Meyer\u2019s guiding principles of culture and togetherness have never faded.<\/p>\n Johann wasn\u2019t regarded as a top coach, nobody knew him, I had to convince the SA Rugby board to get him out of the Bulls and into the Springboks.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Though the pair are extremely close, their in-game demeanours could scarcely contrast more sharply \u2013 Meyer, ferreting and racked with emotion as though perched on hot coals; Van Graan, stoic, composed and virtually expressionless. Meyer swiftly brought him to the international stage when he clambered to the top seat in South African rugby.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I went to the Boks, he was one of the first guys I phoned. He wasn\u2019t regarded as a top coach, nobody knew him, I had to convince the board to get him out of the Bulls and in.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t realise, we played some great rugby. The famous game in 2013 against the All Blacks<\/a>, Nigel Owens was the referee and said it was the best attack he\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n \u201cJohann was my attack and forwards coach. All the work we did together for the Boks, we\u2019d spent over 15 years planning.\u201d<\/p>\n Right from the off, Van Graan was always writing. He sees putting pen to paper as a concrete commitment to his process, where other coaches might pay lip service to mottos and ideologies. Today, his house on Bath\u2019s palatial Farleigh estate is thick with notepads. When he stalks the paddocks pre-match or appears before the television cameras, an A5 book is invariably tucked under an arm. He can tell you the date he was officially hired by the Bulls, his first day at work in Limerick or the West Country, even the exact number of Tests he coached with the Boks.<\/p>\n He also had a keen sense of his own identity. Aged 21, his bible tutor tasked him with presenting on the topic of \u2018who am I?\u2019. Van Graan returned with three pillars: his personal, relationship and professional spheres. And in Meyer, he had found a kindred spirit.<\/p>\n \u201cHe really wanted to learn,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cI liked him from day one; we had the same values. To this day he is probably my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The two-faced whisperers of Thomond\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Many books have been written on the aura of Munster; its lore, its grit, its people. Its team\u2019s propensity for miracles. Some portray the province as a bastion of unbreakable unity dating back to the 19th century. Others purport this idea of bloody-minded \u2018Munster-ness\u2019 to be a modern construct. Whatever the truth, it\u2019s a hell of a place to take your first head coach gig.<\/p>\n Van Graan had been the only member of Meyer\u2019s staff to retain his job after the 2015 World Cup. He left for Ireland<\/a> two years later, and fetched up in Limerick hot on the heels of Rassie Erasmus<\/a>, who had led the province through the desperate passing of \u2018Axel\u2019 Foley and back to the higher echelons of European rugby.<\/p>\n There is a sense Munster never truly warmed to Van Graan. He took them to five semi-finals and a final but never quite onto the winner\u2019s podium. His style of play was deemed too conservative; his apparent coolness criticised in a place where emotion is everything. \u201cA pen-pusher\u201d was one leading pundit\u2019s description towards the end of his reign.<\/p>\n He endured injuries to key players \u2013 RG Snyman<\/a>, for instance, managed 54 minutes in two seasons \u2013 and had to dance to the IRFU\u2019s tune when it came to recruiting from abroad.<\/p>\n Two ex-Munster players approached to contribute to this article declined on the basis they did not reflect with great joy upon those years. Simon Zebo<\/a> was not one of them. The gregarious Munster hero saw the first and last of Van Graan\u2019s five seasons at Thomond Park, either side of his stint at Racing 92. His recollections are revealing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took Johann a while to adjust to Ireland, and it didn\u2019t help one or two people in the background were undermining him, speaking badly about him to certain players,\u201d Zebo says.<\/p>\n It was two-faced because there weren\u2019t many people putting their hand up to say anything personally to Johann. There was a lot of negativity from certain people \u2013 people who have a track record of that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cSome people within the organisation maybe didn\u2019t want him there, wanted us to play a different brand, didn\u2019t buy in to his ethos. I didn\u2019t like that. I don\u2019t like whispers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was two-faced because there weren\u2019t many people putting their hand up to say anything personally to Johann. There was a lot of negativity from certain people \u2013 people who have a track record of that. Nasty stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the great, galvanising personality of Erasmus could not have been easy. Rassie went home to mend his broken Springboks in late 2017, months after reaching the Pro12 final and being named the league\u2019s coach of the year. Van Graan had to fill the void.<\/p>\n \u201cJohann was on the back foot from the get-go,\u201d Zebo goes on. \u201cIt was always going to be tough to replicate Rassie\u2019s tenure. He took us from the depths and brought us back to European semi-finals. Johann was able to do that too but Rassie was more of an imposing figure, they had totally different personalities.<\/p>\n \u201cThose whispers were gone when Rassie was there but that negativity seeped back in. I\u2019ve been around a long time and you can tell when there\u2019s full buy-in from the club and when there\u2019s not. Johann had one arm tied behind his back because of certain people.\u201d<\/p>\n Even amidst such trials, Zebo was struck by two things: Van Graan\u2019s warmth and compassion, and his extraordinary thoroughness in preparing a team.<\/p>\n At the end of his first campaign, Munster faced Racing 92<\/a> in the semi-finals of the Champions Cup. When Van Graan unveiled his strategy in the midweek gathering, Zebo scratched his eyes and squinted harder.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were 20-30m from the Racing try line in the second 20 minutes of the game, he had a ploy for us to kick drop goals, because they\u2019d have to take 22m drop-outs and we\u2019d receive the ball. Our plan was to take back-to-back drop goals, make them do shuttle runs, make them defend, and keep them camped there. It took a lot out of their legs.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the meeting beforehand I was like, \u2018What the f**k are we doing? Can you not give me the ball and let me try something?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d never heard of that, never dreamed of employing those tactics, but he\u2019d done such research and watched so many videos, he\u2019d learned how teams taking drop goals affected Racing. We probably got two or three drop goals out of it and I just remember watching the Racing front five and they were struggling. It took its toll.\u201d<\/p>\n Munster finished the match like a steam train but chasing a 24-3 half-time deficit, could not conjure another legendary European fable.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t love the tactics of kicking and chasing box kicks, but I enjoyed playing for him. He understood how to get individuals motivated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cBy the end of the game we were the stronger team and I could see the fruits of his plan come to life,\u201d Zebo says. \u201cWe had the run on them. We ran out of time as opposed to losing that game.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a master tactician. That was one example of many.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Graan, with defence guru JP Ferreira at his side, favoured a pragmatic blueprint. Set-piece, astute kicking and a roughhouse defence were his tenets. He just could not wrest Irish supremacy nor the league crown away from Leinster.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think everybody loved the way we were playing,\u201d Zebo says. \u201cFor players on the fringes, it\u2019s easy for them to look back and not have the fondest of memories.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did well under him, you know. He may not have had the weapons at his disposal to really show the quality of coach or attack coach he could be.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is well able to evolve his style. He went to Bath and has Finn Russell<\/a> and these guys and was able to play a more attacking brand. Not completely different, but a different style to what we saw at Munster.<\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoyed playing under him. I didn\u2019t love the tactics of kicking and chasing box kicks, but I enjoyed playing for him. He understood how to get individuals motivated. He and JP were two great guys who wanted nothing but the best for Munster.\u201d<\/p>\n When Zebo was leaving for Paris, he remembers a boozy night in Killaloe, a little town of under 2,000 folk on the banks of the River Shannon. Zebo, Van Graan, Ferreira and beers. The craic, as they say, was ninety. Banter exchanged and selfies snapped. Three years later when Zebo came back to begin his home stretch, Van Graan was delighted to have him return.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was heavily involved with bringing me back, which I didn\u2019t think he might have wanted at that stage of my career. He welcomed me with open arms. I won\u2019t forget his kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n Sticking to the process<\/strong><\/p>\n Josh McNally grimaces at the malaise which swamped Bath in the summer of 2022. A giant on its knees, bottom of the league, saved from relegation only by the fluctuating laws governing entry to the top flight. This was a paltry reflection of the talent in the squad and the vast riches spent assembling it.<\/p>\n \u201cSome players on their way out probably needed to move on,\u201d the lock says. \u201cThe money was spent in the wrong areas, on the wrong type of player, and we had a disastrous year. You never want that feeling but it was almost like, \u2018can we just write that off and get to the new era?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As Bath flailed, Van Graan was offered a two-year extension at Munster. When the opportunity arose to resurrect the hobbled West Country heavyweight, he could not resist the project. He sought Meyer\u2019s counsel and Meyer urged him to move. This was a blank canvas backed by the closest thing English rugby has to a blank cheque.<\/p>\n For some time, Van Graan studied his underperforming A-listers from afar. He called them in, one by one, and dropped the mother of all truth bombs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Johann came in, it was such a breath of fresh air, he gave some lads who\u2019d had such an easy ride at Bath a bit of a kick up the arse,\u201d McNally says. \u201cHe instilled a bit of discipline and how to be a professional outfit.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a lot of senior players who felt like, \u2018oh there\u2019ll be a time in a game when I\u2019ll turn up\u2019. This isn\u2019t a game for being great for moments, it\u2019s about how hard you are going to work for each other, get off the floor and go and make more moments. That was down to body composition, fitness, individual extras \u2013 everything.<\/p>\n \u201cTo pretty much a man, no-one who got those talking-tos came out of them with a negative attitude. Johann understood how to push the right buttons to get the best out of people. Boys would come out and say, \u2018I haven\u2019t been spoken to like that for a long time and I\u2019m going to sort myself out\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n He produced stats to show we were getting better: regaining more kicks, our maul was gaining more metres. All of a sudden, those games started turning.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Just as he and Meyer did at the Bulls, Van Graan had the Farleigh House facilities revamped and upgraded. He also hired new heads of department across the club \u2013 athletic performance, medical, nutrition and mental skills. These, he stressed, were world-class operators.<\/p>\n A \u2018family first\u2019 ethos was gradually knitted through the camp. And above all, Van Graan had unwavering faith in his vision. The phrase \u201cstick to process\u201d mightn\u2019t have headline writers scrambling for the front page, but it is the perfect, unflustered mantra for Bath\u2019s rise.<\/p>\n The first year was all about becoming hard to beat. Ferreira would solidify their defence; they would compete more in the air and turn their set-piece into a major weapon. Sounds great, right? Except they lost their opening five games. By Christmas, with Wasps<\/a> and Worcester<\/a> gone, Bath were bottom of the league \u2013 again.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can get short-term-focused, lose a couple of games and try to change everything,\u201d McNally says. \u201cJohann was the first coach I\u2019d had where we had a process around how we wanted to play and didn\u2019t deviate from that.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been stuff he\u2019s put up in front of a group that I didn\u2019t know would land but that was how he felt, he was ready to show that rawness in himself \u2013 \u2018that\u2019s what I believe in\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you feel coaches have scripted something, or they think it\u2019s the right thing to say. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever spoken to him and thought he didn\u2019t believe what he said. Not everyone buys in straight away, but it\u2019s amazing how infectious that can be. Guys who don\u2019t, won\u2019t last on his journey, but not in a dictatorial kind of way.<\/p>\n \u201cHe instilled belief that what we were doing was working. He produced stats to show we were getting better: regaining more kicks, our maul was gaining more metres. All of a sudden, those games started turning. We won our last four games to qualify for the Champions Cup. That was the turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n McNally, who left for Cardiff at the end of last season, had numerous eye-opening discussions with Van Graan. During those early months, the coach confided he \u201cdidn\u2019t realise the demons we were carrying\u201d.<\/p>\n Van Graan is a famously early riser. He runs, reflects, prays, plans and gathers his coaches. One morning is etched in McNally\u2019s memory, when the Bath lineout leaders were called into Van Graan\u2019s office. They were greeted by what resembled a scene from a detective drama.<\/p>\n \u201cHis office was littered with paper,\u201d McNally says. \u201cClipboard paper, big flipchart bits of paper, all taped to his walls. He\u2019d gone into a bit of a lineout frenzy and felt he could predict Leicester\u2019s lineouts.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019d watched every lineout Leicester<\/a> had run that year. He\u2019d watched all of England\u2019s because he believed Steve Borthwick\u2019s system had stayed with Leicester after he left. It just blew our minds. I\u2019d never seen anyone analyse rugby in that detail.<\/p>\n \u201cWe stole six or seven lineouts that game because of a trigger here, a person standing there.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was when I decided I didn\u2019t want to coach. He\u2019d slept in his office that night, preparing all this for us, and wow, if that\u2019s the level of detail required to be the best, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve got that in me.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s so ahead of where rugby is going. He\u2019s the coach everyone is going to look to in the next 10 years to see where the game is heading<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yet the players were not burdened by this avalanche of data.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know he has got the matrix running through his head but that never becomes the players\u2019 problem. They are very clear in the basic roles they have to do, and they do them well.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Graan is on the training pitch for every session but never interferes with an assistant\u2019s area. He leads what he calls \u2018ARPG\u2019 \u2013 the all-round pressure game \u2013 formulating how Bath approach each scenario, which plays to run in which circumstances. \u201cThe perfect game, basically,\u201d McNally says. He watches endless hours of rugby, plotting for intricacies and obstacles such as Beno Obano\u2019s early red card in the Premiership final last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is not a scenario he has not lived,\u201d McNally continues. \u201cHe has built scenarios in his head, he will have lived it, he will have spoken to people around the world who have been through that scenario.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is such a rugby-smart person that he knows pretty much every decision before it needs to be made. He\u2019s so ahead of where rugby is going. He\u2019s the coach everyone is going to look to in the next 10 years to see where the game is heading.\u201d<\/p>\n In Van Graan\u2019s second year, he signed Finn Russell as his franchise quarterback and Lee Blackett as his attacking lieutenant. The upshot was a diversified game plan and a runners-up medal. \u201cWe\u2019ll just have to win it next year,\u201d Russell told Van Graan after the gut-churning final loss to Northampton, where Bath fought so bravely and came so close with 14 men.<\/p>\n They still kick plenty \u2013 more than any Premiership team besides Saracens \u2013 but they have the arsenal and the intellect to fillet opponents as well as crush them. They romped the league by 11 points with the most tries scored and fewest conceded. They claimed the Premiership Cup<\/a> with a core of academy graduates and outgunned Edinburgh<\/a> and Lyon<\/a> to lift the EPCR Challenge trophy. Their depth, carefully built and nurtured, and aided by the grim demise of other elite clubs, has forged legendary staying power. Their 6-2 bench is ferocious and their try difference in the second half of Premiership games a remarkable +34.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might think Bath are an unstoppable team at the moment but Johann is always thinking, how can we get better? Who can we recruit?\u201d McNally says.<\/p>\n \u201cThat might not necessarily be a player, it might be a Ruaridh McConnochie<\/a> coming in to coach skills next year. He spends his summer doing personal development, meeting Navy Seals, visiting the Miami Dolphins. He\u2019s constantly like, what\u2019s next, what\u2019s next? I just don\u2019t see any other environment doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t see how this stops. It\u2019s not going to stop overnight, a couple of injuries aren\u2019t going to stop them, the fans are still going to come out everywhere they go.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Whatever happens at Twickenham on Saturday, when Bath meet Leicester for English supremacy, the infrastructure and talent flow at the Rec will endure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll become such a dynasty club,\u201d McNally stresses. \u201cEvery player coming in understands immediately what\u2019s required of them. Young players know what\u2019s been set.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s always how you judge a club. When you see that team win the Prem Cup so dominantly, the younger boys come and do the exact same roles as the world beaters, so well drilled, that\u2019s where you see growth in the group and how good that environment is.<\/p>\n \u201cI see clubs having a good year and competing with Bath, but as long the club is where it\u2019s at, I don\u2019t see anyone coming close. The only teams who really compete to their level are full of superstars in France. It\u2019s a bit like where Saracens<\/a> were 10 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see how this stops. It\u2019s not going to stop overnight, a couple of injuries aren\u2019t going to stop them, the fans are still going to come out everywhere they go, and it seems like a great place to be and a great place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n In hauling this foundering behemoth out of the doldrums towards the promised land, Van Graan has seen his stock soar. There\u2019s an increasingly compelling narrative which propels him back to South Africa, following Erasmus in the iconic Bokke job as he did in the red of Munster nearly eight years ago. Meyer\u2019s view is emphatic.<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely,\u201d he replies, when asked if Van Graan is a Springbok supremo in waiting.<\/p>\n \u201cI always believed he would coach at the highest level. You just need a little bit of luck at the right club. A lot of successful coaches go to another club and are not successful. Steve Hansen, a great coach and good friend of mine, is struggling a bit in Japan, and Stuart Lancaster, another of my friends, at Racing. You need the backing of the ownership. Johann has got that at Bath. And he will just get better with experience.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believed we could do anything if we had the right vision, the right culture and the right guys behind that.\u201d<\/p>\n Before Bath played Bristol<\/a> in the Premiership semi-final, Meyer sent Van Graan a message. It was a picture of the two men dressed in full green and gold regalia inside the South Africa<\/a> changing room. Van Graan has an arm around the shoulder of his friend. \u201cSTERKTE\u201d, Meyer typed in capital letters \u2013 \u201cgood luck\u201d. The pair spoke again on Sunday and will exchange more texts in the lead-up to the showpiece, against the Tigers team Meyer himself coached way back in 2008, spearheaded by Handre Pollard<\/a>, the ice-cold playmaker Meyer capped in 2014.<\/p>\n Bath last had the English crown 29 years ago. A Prem Cup-Challenge Cup-Premiership hat-trick has never been completed. Then again, nor has a 16-year-old been entrusted to critique Springbok rugby players with a VHS machine and a pencil. To borrow from Van Graan himself, \u2018niks is onmoontlik nie\u2019. Nothing is impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At home in Grootbrak along South Africa\u2019s beautiful Garden Route, Heyneke Meyer has a poster mounted on his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-178012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114669626936487574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-151420715-1024x760.jpg.webp\")
Van Graan and Meyer have been close confidants for almost 30 years (Photo by Paul Kane\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1577956-1024x711.jpg.webp\")
A Bulls squad featuring a young Victor Matfield<\/a> finished bottom of the Super Rugby table in 2002 (Photo by Dean Treml\/GettyImages)<\/p>\n\n
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Though Van Graan\u2019s Munster legacy is debated, he cut an emotional figure after his team lost a penalty shootout against Toulouse<\/a> shortly before his departure (Photo by Alex Davidson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n
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Simon Zebo spent two years working under Van Graan at his home province (Photo By Diarmuid Greene\/Sportsfile via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n
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Josh McNally, who is also a Royal Air Force<\/a> engineer, was a senior player at Bath when Van Graan was appointed (Photo by Patrick Khachfe\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-491677008-1024x680.jpg.webp\")
Van Graan learned how to make decisions under pressure and thrive in the chaos of Test match rugby while running water and relaying messages for Meyer\u2019s Springboks (Photo credit should read LIONEL BONAVENTURE\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n
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The arrival of Finn Russell signalled an evolution in Bath\u2019s attacking philosophy (Photo by Patrick Khachfe\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n
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Van Graan and his coaching staff with the EPCR Challenge Cup<\/a> in Cardiff last month (Photo by Bob Bradford \u2013 CameraSport via Getty Images)<\/p>\n