BATH Head of Rugby Johann van Graan is not at all concerned with the challenges posed by the new Professional Game Partnership.
Designed to boost the chances of success for the England national team, the tripartite agreement between the RFU/PRL/ RPA will also help to protect players from other countries playing in the Premiership like Bath’s Finn Russell.
Included in the changes that will be implemented is the provision of mandatory rest at clubs for players after they have been on international duty.
Russell, for example, made his debut for Bath a week after Scotland‘s pool exit at last year’s World Cup, coming on as a replacement in the opening game of the league season at home to Newcastle. This wouldn’t have happened under the new PGP with a mandatory three-week stand-down period in place.
Players in England are expected to play no more than 30 matches per season, according to the new deal, which could mean the league’s DoRs have an even bigger juggling act, especially with slimmed-down squads.
Bath have 12 players who’ve been capped whilst at Bath under van Graan, and others, such as Ted Hill, can’t be far away from making the step up to Test rugby.
Van Graan, however, is well-versed in chopping and changing personnel where necessary, in a bid to keep his squad fresh and competitive. It worked last year with Bath making their first final in nine years and picking up at least one point in every round except one.
Not once, from Rounds 1-18, did the South African name an unchanged XV. And in the five matches between Rounds 9 and 13, when the dual demands of Europe and the Premiership combined to put pressure on the squad, he opted for double figure changes on four out of the five week-ends. Over the course of the whole season Bath averaged seven changes from game to game.
“I am very content with the way I have managed my squad the last two years. I’ll give you one example of our squad management, last year we played Leicester Tigers over the New Year and I rested Finn Russell and I had a whole host of people telling me, ‘how can you rest Finn Russell for the game’? However, after that he played four consecutive games for us,”
“I can give examples of when Ben (Spencer) was rested, Ollie (Lawrence) was rested, so this is nothing new for us. I will continue to do what I did before, and that’s backing the squad. No player can play all the games.
“However, I can’t determine Lions selection, that is Faz’s (Andy Farrell’s) role, I can’t determine England selection, that is Steve’s (Borthwick) role, I can’t determine South Africa selection. That’s Rassie’s (Erasmus) role. I can only do what’s best for this group of players and for our club.
“There’s a new PGP which is in the best interests of all parties involved and I am currently coach at Bath and we are all bound by that. So I will keep managing the squad in the best interests of Bath rugby and the players.”
Van Graan’s first XV of the season looked almost as strong as it could possibly be, with the exception of midfield where injury has deprived Bath of Max Ojomoh (knee) and Cam Redpath (shoulder).
Will Butt was chosen to come in at 12 to partner Ollie Lawrence for the season’s opener against Northampton on Friday.
“I’m not going to put a timeline on it but it was not good news from the specialist, so Max will be out for a number of weeks,” van Graan said.
“The sad thing for Max is that he was one of our best players in our pre-season, but he’s pragmatic about it. He’s been injury-free for the past three seasons so he will get through this.”
Ojomoh started five Premiership games at inside-centre last season and six at 13, whereas Redpath had a 9-2 split. In every league game at least one of them started at centre.
Discussing the competition at 12, Van Graan continued: “Orlando did really, really well at 12 this pre-season. Louis Hennessey has had a fantastic U20s World Cup and Ollie (Lawrence) is one of the best players in the Premiership, so we’ve got good depth there.
“Cam Redpath is still a couple of weeks away from returning from that surgery, but the positive thing about Cam is that he did most parts of training today this week so he’s not far off.”
