Johann van Graan will lean on ‘good people around him’

Johann van Graan welcomed his family off the plane from South Africa on Thursday and then sat down to pick his first team in 15 years as he settled into a new life as a professional head coach at Munster.

There may be question marks about his lack of experience as the main man, and the former Springboks forwards coach is acutely aware as he prepares to take charge of his Munster selection for the first time in Cork against Ospreys this evening that his appointment to the province as successor to compatriot Rassie Erasmus has placed something of a target on his back at which the naysayers can take aim.

Yet the 37-year-old radiates the sort of bullet-proof confidence that suggests that this is, for him, not a make or break point in his coaching career, merely the next step up on the ladder.