A COUPLE OF oddities to begin with: Munster have not faced Bath in a competitive game for over 25 years, the sides splitting victories in an October doubleheader back in 2000.
And perhaps more curiously still, it’s been 20 years since former champions Bath won a Champions Cup knockout tie.
The 1998 winners — England’s first — have left virtually no imprint on Europe’s top tier since then, but that’s bound to change this term.
Fitting that it took a former Munster head coach to place a fresh emphasis on winning continental silverware. When Van Graan arrived at a club in the depths of despair in 2022, he explained to his players in a team meeting what the Champions Cup meant to him, and what it should now mean to them. Bath had just finished bottom of The Premiership, which then consisted of 13 teams. Ben Spencer recalls teammate Tom Dunn responding, “If we can win one game in Europe, I’ll be a happy man.”
Bath’s three trophies last season ended a 29-year drought, but one of those was merely a consolation prize. As opposed to sating it, winning the Challenge Cup only further whet the appetite to leave an imprint on the Champions Cup this time around, and with the monkey off their backs in their domestic league, Bath may even prioritise Europe over home affairs this season.
They weren’t as far away from making a dent in the Champions Cup last season as their pool-stage exit suggests on paper, either. Bath’s 2024/25 campaign began with 24-20 to La Rochelle at The Rec, and Van Graan and co. had already made the call to rotate their squad heavily for the following week’s trip to Treviso, where they lost by a single point to Benetton.
Those defeats left them behind the eight ball and, after a heavy victory over Clermont, Bath were eventually knocked out by Leinster having led at half-time and been reduced to 14 men at the Aviva Stadium, Ben Obano enduring the kind of scrummaging nightmare that befell Ireland’s props against the Springboks more recently.
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Point being, the trajectory of Bath’s Champions Cup campaign might have been entirely different had they managed to win one of their opening two squeakers, and it looks unfortunate for a Jack Crowley-less Munster that Van Graan’s side will be hellbent on setting a different tone at The Rec from 8pm this evening.
To be clear, Bath were around 11-point favourites to beat Munster prior to Friday’s team announcements, but the loss of the visitors’ star out-half to an ankle injury has seen the spread swing out to 15.
Rarely outside of a knockout game in France have Munster ever been underdogs by more than two scores. But in Bath, Van Graan has had the resources to almost complete the vision he had back in Limerick, where he ultimately found Munster’s lack of spending power and the IRFU’s oversight prohibitive.
Whereas his inability to sign NIQ front rows and RG Snyman’s unfortunate injury record at the southern province prevented Munster from building the profile of pack that would have allowed Van Graan to coach to his true ideals, he’s enjoyed almost carte blanche at Bath by comparison and he has composed a truly formidable outfit.
In the 2017 Netflix documentary series, The Defiant Ones, music mogul Jimmy Iovine describes the bear as the world’s most formidable animal “because a bear can get you on land but it can get you in water as well.” That’s Van Graan’s Bath: an all-terrain outfit that can just as easily play through you as it plays around you, with the likes of Guy Pepper, Max Ojomoh and Josh Bayliss laying the foundation for Finn Russell to essentially do as he pleases behind them.
As Kellie Harrington is to boxing, Bath are the universal team against whom no style or gameplan is safe.
Central to the narrative this evening, too, is the scrum, where the aforementioned Ben Obano and Tom Dunn are joined at tighthead by a British & Irish Lion in Will Stuart, whose deputy on the bench is none other than 2019 World Cup winner Thomas ‘The Tank’ du Toit.
Former Ireland international Quinn Roux and Charlie Ewels are also an excellent scrummaging duo in the second row, and Bath will be licking their lips having seen what the Stormers — probably the best scrum in Europe, admittedly — were able to do to Munster at Thomond Park last weekend.
Clayton McMillan’s visitors will be bolstered, however, by the return from Test duty of their tighthead lock, Jean Kleyn, while new front-row signing Michael Ala’alatoa will make a debut off the bench at some point. Each man is bound to make a difference at The Rec.
Less clear is what Munster intend to do should starting out-half JJ Hanrahan suffer an injury: they have no 10 cover on their 6-2 bench and are taking a gamble in leaving that potential responsibility to an Alex Nankivell or an Ethan Coughlan, if indeed they are the next in line.
Munster will have headed to Bath with no fear — they gave the previous Prem champions, Northampton, a fair rattle at Franklin’s Gardens in the pool stage last season.
But in reality, a victory tonight in Somerset would rank right up there in their own far richer European history.
Bath: 15. Tom de Glanville, 14. Joe Cokanasiga, 13. Max Ojomoh, 12. Cameron Redpath, 11. Henry Arundell, 10. Finn Russell, 9. Ben Spencer (c), 1. Beno Obano, 2. Tom Dunn, 3. Will Stuart, 4. Quinn Roux, 5. Charlie Ewels, 6. Josh Bayliss, 7. Guy Pepper, 8. Miles Reid
Replacements: 16. Kepu Tuipulotu, 17. Francois van Wyk, 18. Thomas du Toit, 19. Ross Molony, 20. Ted Hill, 21. Tom Carr-Smith, 22. Santi Carreras, 23. Sam Underhill
Munster: 15. Shane Daly, 14. Diarmuid Kilgallen, 13. Tom Farrell, 12. Dan Kelly, 11. Thaakir Abrahams, 10. JJ Hanrahan, 9. Craig Casey, 1. Michael Milne, 2. Diarmuid Barron, 3. John Ryan, 4. Jean Kleyn, 5. Tom Ahern, 6. Tadhg Beirne (c), 7. John Hodnett, 8. Gavin Coombes
Replacements: 16. Lee Barron, 17. Jeremy Loughman, 18. Michael Ala’alatoa, 19. Edwin Edogbo, 20. Ruadhan Quinn, 21. Ethan Coughlan, 22. Alex Nankivell, 23. Alex Kendellen
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Van Graan's Bath will be hellbent on getting European campaign off to a flier against Munster
A COUPLE OF oddities to begin with: Munster have not faced Bath in a competitive game for over 25 years, the sides splitting victories in an October doubleheader back in 2000.
And perhaps more curiously still, it’s been 20 years since former champions Bath won a Champions Cup knockout tie.
The 1998 winners — England’s first — have left virtually no imprint on Europe’s top tier since then, but that’s bound to change this term.
Fitting that it took a former Munster head coach to place a fresh emphasis on winning continental silverware. When Van Graan arrived at a club in the depths of despair in 2022, he explained to his players in a team meeting what the Champions Cup meant to him, and what it should now mean to them. Bath had just finished bottom of The Premiership, which then consisted of 13 teams. Ben Spencer recalls teammate Tom Dunn responding, “If we can win one game in Europe, I’ll be a happy man.”
Bath’s three trophies last season ended a 29-year drought, but one of those was merely a consolation prize. As opposed to sating it, winning the Challenge Cup only further whet the appetite to leave an imprint on the Champions Cup this time around, and with the monkey off their backs in their domestic league, Bath may even prioritise Europe over home affairs this season.
They weren’t as far away from making a dent in the Champions Cup last season as their pool-stage exit suggests on paper, either. Bath’s 2024/25 campaign began with 24-20 to La Rochelle at The Rec, and Van Graan and co. had already made the call to rotate their squad heavily for the following week’s trip to Treviso, where they lost by a single point to Benetton.
Those defeats left them behind the eight ball and, after a heavy victory over Clermont, Bath were eventually knocked out by Leinster having led at half-time and been reduced to 14 men at the Aviva Stadium, Ben Obano enduring the kind of scrummaging nightmare that befell Ireland’s props against the Springboks more recently.
Point being, the trajectory of Bath’s Champions Cup campaign might have been entirely different had they managed to win one of their opening two squeakers, and it looks unfortunate for a Jack Crowley-less Munster that Van Graan’s side will be hellbent on setting a different tone at The Rec from 8pm this evening.
To be clear, Bath were around 11-point favourites to beat Munster prior to Friday’s team announcements, but the loss of the visitors’ star out-half to an ankle injury has seen the spread swing out to 15.
Rarely outside of a knockout game in France have Munster ever been underdogs by more than two scores. But in Bath, Van Graan has had the resources to almost complete the vision he had back in Limerick, where he ultimately found Munster’s lack of spending power and the IRFU’s oversight prohibitive.
Whereas his inability to sign NIQ front rows and RG Snyman’s unfortunate injury record at the southern province prevented Munster from building the profile of pack that would have allowed Van Graan to coach to his true ideals, he’s enjoyed almost carte blanche at Bath by comparison and he has composed a truly formidable outfit.
In the 2017 Netflix documentary series, The Defiant Ones, music mogul Jimmy Iovine describes the bear as the world’s most formidable animal “because a bear can get you on land but it can get you in water as well.” That’s Van Graan’s Bath: an all-terrain outfit that can just as easily play through you as it plays around you, with the likes of Guy Pepper, Max Ojomoh and Josh Bayliss laying the foundation for Finn Russell to essentially do as he pleases behind them.
As Kellie Harrington is to boxing, Bath are the universal team against whom no style or gameplan is safe.
Central to the narrative this evening, too, is the scrum, where the aforementioned Ben Obano and Tom Dunn are joined at tighthead by a British & Irish Lion in Will Stuart, whose deputy on the bench is none other than 2019 World Cup winner Thomas ‘The Tank’ du Toit.
Former Ireland international Quinn Roux and Charlie Ewels are also an excellent scrummaging duo in the second row, and Bath will be licking their lips having seen what the Stormers — probably the best scrum in Europe, admittedly — were able to do to Munster at Thomond Park last weekend.
Clayton McMillan’s visitors will be bolstered, however, by the return from Test duty of their tighthead lock, Jean Kleyn, while new front-row signing Michael Ala’alatoa will make a debut off the bench at some point. Each man is bound to make a difference at The Rec.
Less clear is what Munster intend to do should starting out-half JJ Hanrahan suffer an injury: they have no 10 cover on their 6-2 bench and are taking a gamble in leaving that potential responsibility to an Alex Nankivell or an Ethan Coughlan, if indeed they are the next in line.
Munster will have headed to Bath with no fear — they gave the previous Prem champions, Northampton, a fair rattle at Franklin’s Gardens in the pool stage last season.
But in reality, a victory tonight in Somerset would rank right up there in their own far richer European history.
Bath: 15. Tom de Glanville, 14. Joe Cokanasiga, 13. Max Ojomoh, 12. Cameron Redpath, 11. Henry Arundell, 10. Finn Russell, 9. Ben Spencer (c), 1. Beno Obano, 2. Tom Dunn, 3. Will Stuart, 4. Quinn Roux, 5. Charlie Ewels, 6. Josh Bayliss, 7. Guy Pepper, 8. Miles Reid
Replacements: 16. Kepu Tuipulotu, 17. Francois van Wyk, 18. Thomas du Toit, 19. Ross Molony, 20. Ted Hill, 21. Tom Carr-Smith, 22. Santi Carreras, 23. Sam Underhill
Munster: 15. Shane Daly, 14. Diarmuid Kilgallen, 13. Tom Farrell, 12. Dan Kelly, 11. Thaakir Abrahams, 10. JJ Hanrahan, 9. Craig Casey, 1. Michael Milne, 2. Diarmuid Barron, 3. John Ryan, 4. Jean Kleyn, 5. Tom Ahern, 6. Tadhg Beirne (c), 7. John Hodnett, 8. Gavin Coombes
Replacements: 16. Lee Barron, 17. Jeremy Loughman, 18. Michael Ala’alatoa, 19. Edwin Edogbo, 20. Ruadhan Quinn, 21. Ethan Coughlan, 22. Alex Nankivell, 23. Alex Kendellen
Referee: Jeremy Rozier (France).
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