Bath to take lessons from European loss – Van Graan

Bath will take lessons from their Champions Cup semi-final defeat but have no regrets, says head of rugby Johann van Graan.

The defending Prem champions were beaten 38-26 by French giants Bordeaux Begles on Sunday to miss out on a place in their first final in the competition since 1998.

Bordeaux came out of the pool stage with the highest ranking and while the game was played away from their home ground it was still within in the city of Bordeaux essentially making it a home fixture.

The only points Van Graan’s side dropped during the competition were in the defeat away by Toulon during the group stage in January, which led to them falling short on the highest seeding in the latter stages of the competition.

“Home ground advantage is massive in this competition and if you look at the history of the competition home teams generally get to the final,” Van Graan told BBC Radio Bristol.

“Our learnings [are] we’ve got to make sure we pick up every single point.

“We got five against Munster, one against Toulon, we got five against Castres in France, five against Edinburgh – it’s that second game in France which is always such a tough game to go to.”

During Van Graan’s tenure Bath have won the Prem title, Prem Rugby Cup and Challenge Cup but the their only win in European top tier competition remains almost 30 years ago, when it was then known as the Heineken Cup.

Bath fell short at the semi-final stage in 2006 away at Brive but Van Graan said returning and going two steps further in the coming years remains an aim.

“We as a group have gotten to love this competition now and who knows what happens next season?” he added.

“One season doesn’t have anything to do with the next one, but this is the only competition that we as a group haven’t won yet, it’s definitely something we’d love to do in our time together.”

England winger Henry Arundell, who played the full match in France, said the result had given the players “validation” that they can compete against the world’s best teams.

“It’s disappointing some of the opportunities we didn’t take but it’s also validation that we are good enough against the current champions,” he said.

“For the future it means we know where we need to improve and we are capable of really competing in that competition.”