Johann van Graan on three years at Munster: You’re going to sit on your bed and say ‘what have I done?’
Munster head coach Johann van Graan ahead of a PRO14 game at Thomond Park last year. He has now been at the helm at the province fot three years. Picture: INPHO/Tommy Dickson
Johann van Graan has come a long way since the late Garrett Fitzgerald picked him up at Cork Airport three years ago and offered the new Munster head coach a confident prediction.
The South African had just left his role as a Springboks assistant coach after five years in the Test arena and was stepping into unfamiliar territory, as a first-time head coach in Northern Hemisphere club rugby.
“I remember Garrett picking me up at Cork airport. I flew from Paris after the French Test. It was a Sunday and we drove to Limerick and he said; ‘Johann, what’s going to happen, either tonight or tomorrow morning, you’re going to sit on your bed and say ‘what have I done?’
“I phoned him the next day and said, ‘yeah, it was exactly like that’. My family was still in South Africa, I’d moved straight into the new house all alone and the next morning, Felix (Jones) came to pick me up and we had some breakfast and then straight into the week.
“This club is not about one person and what I remember about that week is good people, you know, Jerry (Flannery) and Felix were here for a long time and part of a very good coaching group. Niall O’Donovan, our manager, he was fantastic and he made sure there was food in my fridge and petrol in the car; and George Murray keeping me updated all the way until I joined. You know, getting to work with new players and a new system, it was literally that and I remember taking that first week to find my feet.”
The wait for a first trophy since 2011 continues and there have been numerous frustrations along the way, not least the taste of defeat in five semi-finals since he succeeded fellow South African Rassie Erasmus into the hot seat. Yet today, on the third anniversary of his first game in full charge, a PRO14 win over Ospreys at Musgrave Park, van Graan can, if he chooses, afford himself a wry smile in the knowledge things seem to be finally falling into place.
His backroom team has been together a year now since Jones and Flannery departed in summer 2019 with new arrivals Stephen Larkham and Graham Rowntree settled in their respective roles as senior and forwards coaches following a stop-start first season. And while the long-term absence of injured stars like Joey Carbery, Dave Kilcoyne and new signing RG Snyman will continue to be felt, Munster are off to a flying start to the 2020-21 campaign, an instant rebound from the pain of a third successive league semi-final defeat to arch-rivals Leinster three months ago.
Van Graan’s goal all along has been to secure a precious home semi-final by topping their conference and seven wins from seven, Munster’s best start to a league campaign since it began in 2001, has laid a solid foundation in finally reaching that objective.
In an interview conducted online ahead of Monday’s 52-3 victory over Zebre, a bonus-point win that stretched Munster’s lead at the top of Conference B to 16 points, van Graan explained why he thought the excellent start is a result of everything finally falling into place.
“I truly like to believe so. In sport you’re always going to win and you’re going to lose somewhere along the line but we’ve got one, in my view, an excellent coaching staff; two a management team that I trust; three, we’ve got a special player group that is improving year in, year out and they hungry for success.
“We as a group are working extremely hard, not only on the pitch but off the pitch as well. We’re working constantly on our conditioning, we’re redefining our plan, we’ve got such a lovely environment, we’ve got smiles on our faces, not only in games but when we train and we really enjoy each other’s company.
“We believe with all of those things, the more continuity we have the more successful we’ll become.
“There’s been such a lot of change at Munster Rugby over the last four or five years. We’ve had a lot of coaching changes, there’s been, unfortunately, Garrett passed away, we’ve got a new CEO (Ian Flanagan), so we’d like to believe that we keep this group together for the next two or three years and that would ultimately lead to success.
We want to constantly improve, we believe we are and what can we measure it by currently in the season, well, the start that we’ve had, six games and we’ve won six games.”
A seventh victory will not have diminished his conviction that there have not been any more edge of the bed, ‘what am I doing here?’ moments since that first day in Ireland.
“I can honestly say I’ve really enjoyed every single moment. The main reason that I’m coaching is because I love the game and I believe a coach should make a difference in people’s lives and the people of Munster have been absolutely terrific to my family and I. We have got a very nice set-up in Castleconnell, love the Shannon River, the Fairy Woods next to where we stay. From a rugby point of view, I always knew that I was coming into an incredible club with a massive expectation but that’s what I wanted and I’ve embraced that.
Van Graan runs through a mental highlight reel of memorable matches, including his first Champions Cup campaign, which started with back-to-back home and away wins over Leicester Tigers in December 2017 and qualifying out of that season’s pool with a 48-3 round six win over Castres that kicked off three hours late due to a waterlogged Thomond Park pitch.
“There’s a few games that stand out because that’s the end result of a week’s work and you don’t always get the result, but there’s some big games... So a lot of game memories.
“From a job satisfaction point of view, the growth of our squad. Seeing guys that were coming into the academy a few years ago, we made a decision to let the academy train with us from the World Cup onwards and the satisfaction of seeing guys getting their first cap and making a big impression on the team.
“Players like Shane Daly (capped by Ireland for the first time last Sunday), I said to him on the top field one day, he literally ran through the whole team and I said to him, ‘you will play international rugby, you’ve just got to keep working hard, improve, learn’. So that’s been a real highlight.
“I guess from a club perspective, enjoying what Munster’s about. You hear about this community but going to the Milk Market on a Saturday morning with your family before a European game and seeing the support, seeing kids in Limerick playing with rugby balls, you don’t see that very often in the world.
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