Bath finally get the foundations right to build a dynasty

In the seconds after Bath ran in their ninth – that’s right, ninth – try against Saracens last Friday, the camera cut to their head coach Johann van Graan on the touchline, a slight smile across his face, jotting down some notes.

Specifically, Van Graan was thrilled with Bath’s work off the ball, their support play. “You know, people focus on the score. I looked at the way that we worked for the 80 minutes.”

And then there is the bigger picture. “We in life should sometimes listen and watch more than we speak. So it’s making sure that whenever I need to speak, I get the right message across to the players,” says Van Graan. Noting down certain moments that he can later refer back to, Van Graan believes, results in a collection of snapshots which when combined together “gives you a one-point advantage at some stage”.

“It’s a powerful tool once you believe your own handwriting. I think there’s so many other messages currently in life, but you should trust your own handwriting and you know, that’s just the way that I do it.”

This is a fascinating time for Bath, on and off the field. They are English champions for the first time in three decades, have the deepest squad in the league, and in four years have gone from bottom of the Prem to all-conquering force under Van Graan. The depth of their pack is, frankly, absurd. A different forward every week seems to deliver an outstanding performance. In the 62-15 thrashing of Saracens, it was Josh Bayliss. “He was magnificent in the wider channels,” says Van Graan.

I wanted to dig a little deeper into Van Graan’s comments about hard work. How he valued that over the scoreline. Bath have a motto, “Tough to beat”, which given their recent off-field news about billionaire James Dyson becoming co-owner arguably has multiple definitions. In the rugby sense, it came about in Van Graan’s first season, in 2022-23. “Even before we started, we were broken. And we had to figure things out for ourselves, right from the start, because we started at zero.”

Helpfully, he has an ­example. November 2022, Bath hosting Leicester at the Rec: Will Butt’s diving finish in the corner with the clock in the red for a one-point win. It wasn’t just the try itself, but the risky touch-finder from Matt Gallagher after a scrum penalty to set up Bath in the corner that Van Graan remembers.

“You can pick literally any phrase, but it’s got to have meaning. So, what does it mean? A humble group of players and staff that want to get better. We’ll fight for each other. We’ve never said that we will win a game, but we will certainly stay in the fight. It’s measurable. It’s simple things, like, do you get up off the floor?”

How about a second example? In last year’s Prem semi-final at home to Bristol, Van Graan recalls the way that Ted Hill chased down Bristol’s flying winger Kalaveti Ravouvou.

“Nobody will say something if Ted doesn’t make that tackle. But we know. And it’s something that we’re very proud of. It’s not something that we speak [of] to the outside world.”

As for becoming tough to beat off the field, Bath’s deep pockets just got even deeper. With Dyson’s company having been the club’s sponsor for the past 11 years, he has now bought 50% of the club from Bruce Craig, a substantial investment.

Tarquin McDonald, Bath’s chief executive, explained to The Rugby Bunker podcast this week how that investment will help to reduce some of the club’s debts, deliver the new stadium, improving infrastructure off the field and the club’s academy programmes. He believes this should ensure long-term success after years of Bath, before Van Graan, appearing to have all the resources in the world, including a remarkable training base at Farleigh House, but without an idea of how to make the most of it.

“A few years ago, Bath was one of the clubs with the highest ­unavailability of players,” says McDonald. “Today, that’s completely reversed. And so that whole strategy works because of that holistic approach to what we’re doing on and off the pitch.”

Renovating the Rec has not taken quite as long as building the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, but it probably feels that way for the line of chief executives and chairs who have attempted to get it over the line, with an expansion to 18,000 now in sight.

“No one’s ever developed a new stadium in a world heritage city before or even a double world heritage city. We got to a point where there wasn’t a single objection from any government body and that included Unesco world heritage, which is amazing. And we have planning permission. There’s been no judicial review, so that’s a fully cleared consent.”

The target is to begin construction next year, although, as McDonald notes, “there are obviously wider forces at play in the world” which may delay that start time. And the renovations may also lead to Bath taking a few home games on the road towards the end of the season to start construction sooner, to other rugby and football grounds in the south west.

There are moments in games at the moment where Bath seem unstoppable, a juggernaut of a pack complemented by ruthless precision from their backs, conducted superbly by Ben Spencer and Finn Russell.

What happens when you match that collective understanding on the pitch, that belief in your process installed by a coach under contract until 2030, with the financial ability to maximise your structures and bring through wave after wave of fresh talent? Or to open up the cheque book to sign the best in the world? In theory, you can build a dynasty. And after years of failing to get it right, that is seemingly where Bath are heading.

Photograph by Bob Bradford/Getty Images