Johann van Graan hailed the contributions of back-from-injury duo Tom de Glanville and Henry Arundell in Bath Rugby’s home win over Sale Sharks on Saturday 31st October.

After winger Arundell scored the opening try in the third minute of the 36-28 victory, de Glanville bagged his own touchdown, set up Joe Cokanasiga for another and made a superb performance at full-back that earned him the Gallagher Player of the Match award.

At the Blue, Black & White’s post-match press conference, head of rugby van Graan was asked by the Echo for his thoughts on the efforts of de Glanville and Arundell in the PREM Round 5 fixture.

Van Graan said: “I thought it was great to have Deeg [de Glanville] and Henry back.

“I thought Deeg’s aerial game was good.

“We came up against a good aerial side but his decision making, things like how he put Joe away [for a try] in that first half – Deeg is a rock for us.

“Unfortunately we lost Santi [Carreras through injury] for the season now, but great to have Deeg back.

“He struggled at the back end of the game with a bit of discomfort, but really, really glad that he’s back.

“We signed Henry a season ago because of his pace and I think he showed it again today.

“We’re not a team that speaks about injuries too much, because we back our squad, but we’re at the back of this PREM block now.

“Henry’s played one game, Deeg has played two games on the wing and one at 15. Will Muir hasn’t featured yet this season.

“Great to push Charlie Griffin and Tyler Offiah through. And as we’ve done we’ll treat the PREM Cup [which takes centre stage during November] as a development competition.

“Some guys will get a few minutes, but loads of guys away into international rugby, whether it be England or Wales or Scotland or Italy, obviously Santi’s not available, and a lot of guys will be on holiday for up to two weeks.

“I think if you look at the world of rugby now, guys are playing such a high amount of minutes.

“So from a PREM point of view we’ve got loads of guys who you’ll only see again at the start of December [when league action resumes] – and so much rugby left.”

The success against Sale meant Bath bounced back following a run of three successive defeats across all competitions.

Van Graan said: “We finished opportunities, we were a bit more clinical.

“We weren’t worried in terms of the opportunities we created [in the defeats], we needed to finish them – and I thought we did really well today.

“I thought we had good balance to our game, the scrum did well.

“Sale are a very physical team so we used the space out wide.

“I thought Miles [Reid] was excellent [at openside flanker]. Internally we’ve got a man of the match [award] and I gave that to him, I thought that was an excellent 80-minute performance.

“I thought we used opportunities well.

“The try just after half-time, we scored, but then we were really positive with the ball. Unfortunately it was a forward pass and we invited pressure back on ourselves but I think we closed off this game really, really well.

“All credit to the players, even when we were two guys down, getting attention at that penalty in the corner, we still went for the crossfield kick, so we were really positive and I think this was a real squad effort.

“I’m really proud of the squad of players.

“There are 10 very good sides in the PREM. So we need to make sure we get our five points at home.

“We’ve played two games at home in the PREM and we got 10 points.”

Young prop Claudius Wheeler made his professional debut in the win over the Sharks, coming off the bench in place of Beno Obano in the 73rd minute.

Van Graan said: “It’s all good and well to give guys opportunities, but you’ve got to make sure you set them up to succeed.

“I thought with Stuie [Will Stuart] and Dunnie [Tom Dunn] next to him, and Enoch [Opoku-Gyamfi] and Charlie [Ewels] and then Ewan [Richards] behind him, you give him the best possible chance.

“And the only way you’ll know is if you put him on the field. He got his cap in the changing room and everybody’s so happy for him.

“He took a different road to a lot of players. A London boy, and then he came to our junior academy when he was 18, played a lot of his rugby in the uni [University of Bath] second team, and then the uni first team and now he’s our newest Bath player. So a great story.”

The head of rugby gave updates on the injuries suffered by Kepueli Tuipulotu and Scott Kirk – and revealed that Quinn Roux is poised for minutes in the block of PREM Cup matches that begin this week.

“Kepu’s going to visit the surgeon on Tuesday [3rd November] to get some more info, to have a look at it,” said van Graan.

“Unfortunately he took a knock in England camp. Hopefully it’s not too serious. It’s not a one-week or a two-week thing, it’s most likely a bit more time.

“But I don’t want to speculate on that, we’ll go and have a look at that first and hopefully it’s not too long.

“With Scott, we’re waiting for some more scanning information. It’s a toe, similar to Billy [Vilikesa] Sela.

“Unfortunately we’ve picked up a few [injuries] in certain positions, so hopefully over the next number of weeks we’ll get some players back.”

But the news surrounding second row Roux is much better.

“He’ll be potentially featuring in some way across the next few weeks,” said van Graan.

“He took a knock in training. He’ll be back on the field soon.

“But I think Will Jeanes did really well [against Sale], and so good to see Enoch – I thought Enoch brought a lot of power.

“So [we] keep backing our squad but you’ll see Quinn somewhere over the next month.”