VAN GRAAN’S PRAISE FOR COMPETING STARS

our squad,’ he said. ‘We’ve got good competition and we’ve got a saying that “we don’t compete against each, we compete with each other” and that’s the beauty of sport. ‘If one guy takes an opening you’ve got to take it, and I think he [Hanrahan] did. ‘I’m very happy with his game management. We knew beforehand, said all week that if you play too much rugby in your own half, then you’re going to get punished. He varied our play very well. ‘That being said, we’ve got five quality out-halves in our squad. “Keats” isn’t even making the squad at this stage and he’s a quality fly-half. I thought Bill Johnston took his opportunities in the last couple of weeks and then you’ve got Tyler coming back from a big injury that’s improving every week. ‘So it’s brilliant to have five flyhalves available and you need all of them, and competition in a squad is healthy, and we know that we’re going to need 50 guys throughout the season. ‘Today was a very good example of it, the next guy in and you’ve got to step up and perform.’ Munster also await news on Chris Farrell after the Munster centre pulled up with thigh injury in the warm-up prior to the province’s 30-5 win over Castres. Meanwhile, Leinster head coach Leo Cullen is targeting an improved display against Bath in Dublin next Saturday. Cullen’s squad laboured to a 17-10 win at the Rec, but he is expecting a far more cohesive and fluid performance from his side on their home turf in six days’ time. ‘For us, it’s about putting together a performance that’s going to be good enough to give us a win next week,’ he said, insisting nothing will be taken for granted. ‘You can get sidetracked by bonus points and all that chat. It’s just about putting a performance together now. There’s lots of things that we can get better at. ‘For us, sitting as coaches in the stands, we were like, “we’re not quite doing what we want to do”. ‘So conditions played a part but we’ll see what conditions are like next week and how we manage the game and how we manage the preparation leading into the game. It’s a huge week ahead.’