It is the call every club coach in the four Home Nations has come to dread. It is the call made famous by the Lions’ high jinks in the summer of 2013, when Simon Zebo phoned his then head coach at Munster, Rob Penney, to request the provincial captaincy. It is the call, too, which almost got Bath head of rugby, Johann van Graan, hook, line and sinker in the summer of 2021, during the Covid-tainted Lions tour to South Africa, while he was in charge at Munster.
“I was sitting on holiday in Leopard Creek in South Africa and I got a phone call from Tadhg Beirne,” says Van Graan. “Just by chance my phone was on and it was Tadhg and I wondered why he’d be calling.
“I asked him how he was and he always speaks very seriously. He said, ‘Look, Johann, I need to speak to you’. I said, ‘Sure, Tadhg, what’s up, how can I help? … Ah, you want to speak to me about the captaincy’. He wasn’t Munster captain at that stage. Peter [O’Mahony] was. When he mentioned captaincy something triggered in my mind – this wasn’t quite right.
“I remembered what happened in 2013 and I asked if I was on speaker phone. Then, I heard everyone laughing in the background.”
Van Graan just about swerved becoming the butt of the joke then but should Bath, as expected, receive a call-up or two to this summer’s tour to Australia – Will Stuart and Finn Russell are in contention – then the South African will have to be on red alert once again.
“I’ll hopefully be well prepared for Finn!” he jokes. “I’m not sure he’ll be able to hold his laugh. But the Lions are fantastic. In 2017, coaching Munster, the Lions that went to New Zealand: CJ Stander, Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony captaining a Test, and seeing what that meant for the Irish.”
As becomes clear over a chat at Bath’s Farleigh House training ground, that is Van Graan in a nutshell. There is a down-to-earth sense of humour to the 45-year-old but the head of rugby, spearheading a revival of the great club, will not afford himself much of a giggle before a matter-of-factness takes over.
“From a Bath perspective, the Lions is not something we have spoken about but obviously it would be great if some of our players could play,” Van Graan says. “Our game has so many amazing things which we have to look after and the Lions is one of them. When the squad is announced on May 8, we will watch it, and if some of our players are good enough it will be brilliant and it’s so great to see Faz [Andy Farrell, head coach] do it. I coached against him in 2012 – South Africa against England – and then he actually did the defence in Munster for my first few games because Jacques [Nienaber] left and we were waiting for JP [Ferreira] to arrive. I became very good friends with Faz – and how good has he been for Ireland? Now he’s the Lions coach. So, yeah, it’s great to see it from the English side now after the Irish side.”
South African revelling in local community
Van Graan might be South African, raised in Pretoria, but cut him now and he bleeds blue, black and white. Van Graan, his wife, and three children live in a house on site at Farleigh House, one of the Premiership’s most opulent training grounds. He is fully immersed in the Bath project, having joined in July 2022 with the club finishing the previous season bottom of the league. It is not just the crusade at Farleigh and the Rec in which Van Graan is fully immersed, however; throughout local cricket clubs, the South African can be spotted watching his two sons playing, even lending a hand with the catering.
“I’ve done a few barbecues on Friday evening!” Van Graan says. “A bit of boerewors [a South African sausage]. It’s so cool. On Friday night, at Winsley Cricket Club, I’m just a dad. Sometimes, it’s a bacon roll cooked on gas – which I’ve had to learn – and a bit of sausage. There are some full-on braais out in my back garden. That’s where I’ve found the English as a nation so fascinating. I used to think that London is England but in the community in Bath there are amazing people, from all over the world. We have friends from Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa – and English friends. Whether it’s the golf club at Cumberwell, Winsley cricket, Hinton Charterhouse [a village near Bath], or at our kids’ school. We are loving it.
“Family time is our No 1 priority. We have found a church, the kids are in a very good school, and they are sporty. Last Monday we were off so we went to play golf all together. My little girl has just started swinging – she’s four years old now – and the two boys have actually become pretty good at a young age and my wife plays a bit, so it was great to go and play nine holes together. I learnt this in Japan in 2011, our first visit, when we saw some of our rugby friends there, that you have to immerse yourself in the community. That’s something we did at Munster. The Irish people were so good to us. We stayed in a small little village called Castleconnell and we were part of the rugby club, the hurling club, and we started going to Limerick hurling. We have some good friends there. And we’ve tried to do the same thing here. Obviously we’re South Africans, but we’re trying to be as ‘English’ as we can for now!”
Even with his family firmly settled in the South West, it remains tough to shake the notion that a man of his ambition and attainment might not be lured back to his homeland at some point, perhaps to succeed Rassie Erasmus as the head coach of the Springboks. Right now, that is not on the South African’s radar but, in the future, who knows?
“Last season I re-signed for an additional five years, until June 30, 2030,” says Van Graan. “We are on a journey as a family and that remains the most important for me. The very first day, I said to the players and staff: my family is the most important. And we have a saying at Bath: ‘Family first always’. I keep saying to the players and staff that rugby is the thing that we do but it is not who we are. We have a wider purpose and, for me, that is my family. As long as my family is happy, then long may it continue.
“And how good is this playing group here? Who knows where the road goes in terms of rugby? Obviously, I’m South African, I’m a Springbok and that’s not something that you ever ask for. It’s something that happens to you; because a lot of people believe you can do it. Rassie Erasmus is currently doing an amazing job – South Africa will be going for their third World Cup in a row. Who knows? Maybe it’s 10 more years at Bath. Maybe we will go back to South Africa one day. I’d like to coach all over the world but I have learnt in my life that a week is a long time so I’ll enjoy today, enjoy this season, the coming seasons, and whatever happens, happens.”
Bath, South Africa, wherever; just keep an eye on that caller ID, every fourth summer.
It is the call every club coach in the four Home Nations has come to dread. It is the call made famous by the Lions’ high jinks in the summer of 2013, when Simon Zebo phoned his then head coach at Munster, Rob Penney, to request the provincial captaincy. It is the call, too, which almost got Bath head of rugby, Johann van Graan, hook, line and sinker in the summer of 2021, during the Covid-tainted Lions tour to South Africa, while he was in charge at Munster.
“I was sitting on holiday in Leopard Creek in South Africa and I got a phone call from Tadhg Beirne,” says Van Graan. “Just by chance my phone was on and it was Tadhg and I wondered why he’d be calling.
“I asked him how he was and he always speaks very seriously. He said, ‘Look, Johann, I need to speak to you’. I said, ‘Sure, Tadhg, what’s up, how can I help? … Ah, you want to speak to me about the captaincy’. He wasn’t Munster captain at that stage. Peter [O’Mahony] was. When he mentioned captaincy something triggered in my mind – this wasn’t quite right.
“I remembered what happened in 2013 and I asked if I was on speaker phone. Then, I heard everyone laughing in the background.”
Van Graan just about swerved becoming the butt of the joke then but should Bath, as expected, receive a call-up or two to this summer’s tour to Australia – Will Stuart and Finn Russell are in contention – then the South African will have to be on red alert once again.
“I’ll hopefully be well prepared for Finn!” he jokes. “I’m not sure he’ll be able to hold his laugh. But the Lions are fantastic. In 2017, coaching Munster, the Lions that went to New Zealand: CJ Stander, Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony captaining a Test, and seeing what that meant for the Irish.”
As becomes clear over a chat at Bath’s Farleigh House training ground, that is Van Graan in a nutshell. There is a down-to-earth sense of humour to the 45-year-old but the head of rugby, spearheading a revival of the great club, will not afford himself much of a giggle before a matter-of-factness takes over.
“From a Bath perspective, the Lions is not something we have spoken about but obviously it would be great if some of our players could play,” Van Graan says. “Our game has so many amazing things which we have to look after and the Lions is one of them. When the squad is announced on May 8, we will watch it, and if some of our players are good enough it will be brilliant and it’s so great to see Faz [Andy Farrell, head coach] do it. I coached against him in 2012 – South Africa against England – and then he actually did the defence in Munster for my first few games because Jacques [Nienaber] left and we were waiting for JP [Ferreira] to arrive. I became very good friends with Faz – and how good has he been for Ireland? Now he’s the Lions coach. So, yeah, it’s great to see it from the English side now after the Irish side.”
South African revelling in local community
Van Graan might be South African, raised in Pretoria, but cut him now and he bleeds blue, black and white. Van Graan, his wife, and three children live in a house on site at Farleigh House, one of the Premiership’s most opulent training grounds. He is fully immersed in the Bath project, having joined in July 2022 with the club finishing the previous season bottom of the league. It is not just the crusade at Farleigh and the Rec in which Van Graan is fully immersed, however; throughout local cricket clubs, the South African can be spotted watching his two sons playing, even lending a hand with the catering.
“I’ve done a few barbecues on Friday evening!” Van Graan says. “A bit of boerewors [a South African sausage]. It’s so cool. On Friday night, at Winsley Cricket Club, I’m just a dad. Sometimes, it’s a bacon roll cooked on gas – which I’ve had to learn – and a bit of sausage. There are some full-on braais out in my back garden. That’s where I’ve found the English as a nation so fascinating. I used to think that London is England but in the community in Bath there are amazing people, from all over the world. We have friends from Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa – and English friends. Whether it’s the golf club at Cumberwell, Winsley cricket, Hinton Charterhouse [a village near Bath], or at our kids’ school. We are loving it.
“Family time is our No 1 priority. We have found a church, the kids are in a very good school, and they are sporty. Last Monday we were off so we went to play golf all together. My little girl has just started swinging – she’s four years old now – and the two boys have actually become pretty good at a young age and my wife plays a bit, so it was great to go and play nine holes together. I learnt this in Japan in 2011, our first visit, when we saw some of our rugby friends there, that you have to immerse yourself in the community. That’s something we did at Munster. The Irish people were so good to us. We stayed in a small little village called Castleconnell and we were part of the rugby club, the hurling club, and we started going to Limerick hurling. We have some good friends there. And we’ve tried to do the same thing here. Obviously we’re South Africans, but we’re trying to be as ‘English’ as we can for now!”
Even with his family firmly settled in the South West, it remains tough to shake the notion that a man of his ambition and attainment might not be lured back to his homeland at some point, perhaps to succeed Rassie Erasmus as the head coach of the Springboks. Right now, that is not on the South African’s radar but, in the future, who knows?
“Last season I re-signed for an additional five years, until June 30, 2030,” says Van Graan. “We are on a journey as a family and that remains the most important for me. The very first day, I said to the players and staff: my family is the most important. And we have a saying at Bath: ‘Family first always’. I keep saying to the players and staff that rugby is the thing that we do but it is not who we are. We have a wider purpose and, for me, that is my family. As long as my family is happy, then long may it continue.
“And how good is this playing group here? Who knows where the road goes in terms of rugby? Obviously, I’m South African, I’m a Springbok and that’s not something that you ever ask for. It’s something that happens to you; because a lot of people believe you can do it. Rassie Erasmus is currently doing an amazing job – South Africa will be going for their third World Cup in a row. Who knows? Maybe it’s 10 more years at Bath. Maybe we will go back to South Africa one day. I’d like to coach all over the world but I have learnt in my life that a week is a long time so I’ll enjoy today, enjoy this season, the coming seasons, and whatever happens, happens.”
Bath, South Africa, wherever; just keep an eye on that caller ID, every fourth summer.
