SUPER GRAAN

Quiet, thoughtful and unassuming, former Reds coach Johann has reinvented himself from nearly man at Munster to a giant of English Premiership

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looked at the lack of trophies and called him a pen pusher. Some simply couldn't understand him.

He endured a biblical plague of injuries - Joey Carbery, RG Snyman, Chris Farrell, Tadhg Beirne. He was navigating the IRFU's recruitment structures.

And he did it while reshaping a squad that had aged out of its prime long before he arrived. Of the first matchday 23 he selected, only eight remained five years later. Often, the job of a head coach is to plant trees whose shade you'll never sit beneath. Van Graan planted plenty.

But he also felt the whispers. Felt the doubts. Felt the weight of the Leinster comparison - nine trophies in the years Munster went without. Felt the ghosts of 2000-2011 breathing down his neck like winter wind.

And so when Bath called, offering a project, a budget, a blank canvas - and Erasmus whispered back across continents to say "Go" - he left the red jersey behind.

ARRIVAL IN BATH, A BROKEN GIANT

THE Bath he walked into was a giant fallen to its knees. A club too big to be this bad, too rich to be this dysfunctional. They were last in the league, stripped of confidence. Many wanted to write it all off and start again.

Van Graan did just that not with speeches or slogans but with ruthlessness wrapped in politeness.