Johann van Graan and Bath ready for the Premiership

Johann van Graan is determined to ensure his Bath Rugby side suffer no hangover from last season's Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final when they face Northampton Saints on Friday night.

Bath had finished level on points with Phil Dowson's Saints in the league table before losing 25-21 to the East Midlands club in the league's showpiece finale.

With a summer to lick their wounds now behind them, Bath welcome the reigning champions to The Rec for a mouthwatering rematch of the final to open the new Gallagher Premiership season. 

And while there will be no getting away from the result at HQ last June, Van Graan insisted his side have moved on from the result and are ready for the new campaign.

"Whoever you play first up, everybody is going to be raring to go, so for us it’s the start of a new season and there’s no relevance of the final to this game," van Graan said. 

"It’s totally different circumstances, I’ve so much respect for Phil (Dowson) and Northampton for what they’ve done and I said after the final they were a few points better than us on the day. 

"That’s all history, we’re all back to zero points and I’m looking forward to playing the game against them, but it would have been the same for all of the other eight teams.

"We came to the final to win it, but I was very content everyone at the club gave it their all.

"It was a fantastic experience and as a coach you can’t ask anything more of your players. 

"We finished that evening off well - disappointed we didn’t win the game, but we were very proud of what we did as a group through the year."

Continuity has been the key for Bath as they look to go one better this season, with the core of last season's squad remaining at The Rec.
Joe Cokanasiga played 77 minutes of last season's final but was powerless to prevent defeat, as tries from Alex Mitchell and George Furbank sealed silverware for Saints.
But the England wing is confident the pain of defeat can be a positive for those in black, white and blue this term.

"It doesn’t matter who we play, but I think a lot of people are building it up because it is Saints," Cokanasiga said. "We haven’t really spoken about them yet.

"It was tough. We had been building up for so long and that was our aim at the start of the season. 

"But as soon as we got back together in the bus and saw family and friends, it was fine. 

"Johann always talks about building a family team and I think because we were all going through the same thing, it was easier."

Cokanasiga returns to The Rec alongside star attractions such as fly-half Finn Russell, while scrum-half Ben Spencer will hope to continue the form that has earned him a regular place in the England squad, and prop Thomas du Toit impressed on his first season in the South West.

It is part of why there is plenty of optimism that Bath can once again challenge at the top end of the table irrespective of what happens on Friday night.

"Everybody has got the exact same fixtures; home and away," van Graan said. 

"It (the league) starts in the autumn when the conditions are pretty good, then you’ve got to get through the winter and you’ve got to have the game to perform at the back end of the season to potentially score four tries or put a lot of points on a team to help the points difference. 

"You’ve got to have an all-round game and I believe all 10 teams are doing that."