Defiant Bath coach Johann van Graan breaks silence on exploiting loophole to get his star men match fit - after Saracens boss Mark McCall hit out

Bath boss Johann van Graan has rejected criticism from his Saracens counterpart Mark McCall that his club had gamed the system - but admitted the rules over rest periods for English rugby’s top stars are ‘certainly not perfect’.

The 2025/26 PREM Rugby campaign began last weekend on the back of a busy summer which involved the country’s best players on duty either with the British & Irish Lions in Australia or on England’s three-Test tour of the Americas.

An agreement between the RFU and PREM Rugby states all players must stand down from ‘competitive fixtures’ for 10 weeks after the end of their previous campaign.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall hit out at that rule after his team’s round-one win at Newcastle Red Bulls. He felt the likes of Owen Farrell and Tom Willis had been ‘underprepared’ due to not being allowed to get ready for league action by playing in the PREM Rugby Cup. That competition began in early September as a precursor to the league.

Prior to their opening 47-31 league win over Harlequins, Bath arranged a friendly with Worcester – a game for which their side was packed full of England internationals. That match came a day before Bath played Exeter in the PREM Cup.

Unlike the Exeter tie, Bath’s Worcester friendly did not count as ‘competitive’, allowing Van Graan to give crucial preparation minutes to key players such as Ben Spencer, Charlie Ewels and Guy Pepper earlier than he would have otherwise been permitted.

McCall felt Bath gamed the system by doing so.

‘We could have got around it and had a friendly last weekend,’ he said after the Newcastle win. ‘That’s on me. But I don’t think you should have to do that. You can play an 80-minute friendly and it doesn’t count as a match, but you can play 15 minutes in the PREM Cup and it does count as a match. It seems mental to me that that’s the case.’

But Van Graan responded: ‘The pre-season is so short, literally five weeks and two warm-up games. We’re still finding our way into the season.

‘The load is big on players. The back-end of the league season finishing seems a long way away. There are 17 rounds of PREM Rugby still to be played and the Champions Cup.

‘We look after people really well. There’s an agreement in place. Last season, we played against Cardiff on a Friday night and Ealing on a Saturday. We did the exact same this season – Worcester on the Friday and Exeter on the Saturday. Certain (international) guys couldn’t play in the PREM Cup as it’s a competition and with that you can only play 23 players.

‘Whereas in a friendly, you can make multiple substitutions. The system is certainly not perfect. We as directors of rugby have to do what’s best for our clubs.’

The leading PREM players who were on Lions duty in Australia are set to return to their clubs for round three and that includes Bath’s Scottish No 10 Finn Russell.