In a first for Head of Rugby, Johann van Graan, and a first for many of the players, Bath Rugby will take to the field with a Premiership Rugby final within grasp.

The first task: the Premiership play-off.

Van Graan has remained focused, calm and clear on his processes all season. The Head of Rugby has previewed what is set to be an enthralling encounter between his Bath side and Alex Sanderson's Sale Sharks.

"What we as a group said at the start of the Premiership - 18 rounds, get better every week, and then see where we're at," said van Graan. "The end result is we're on 60 points, level with Northampton and earned a home semi-final which is testament to the hard work to, number one, the players, because they've worked now for 50 weeks to get us in this position, as well as a lot of people behind the scenes.

"For us it's about enjoying this week and we've got an opportunity on Saturday afternoon to play in the semi-final of the Premiership.

"Sport proves that it's a lot better to play at home than play away. The cards fell our way that we earned a home semi-final and we'll embrace it. We love playing at The Rec, we've got fantastic supporters that have been there from the first round of the Premiership Rugby Cup, right through the Champions Cup and the Premiership.

"If you look at the need for tickets and how quickly we sold out the stadium for this game, I think we could've sold out The Rec a few times over and it's great to see. For me, the most pleasing thing from a team point of view is people are proud of the club and proud of the players. The players are putting it out there week in week out and it's given us an opportunity on Saturday in the semi-final.

"I think in life you are exactly where you need to be at a certain moment of time. We started on the 11 July two seasons ago and we took it day by day and the number one thing was for people to be themselves, starting with me and then the players and all the staff working extremely hard and then repeating that for two seasons in a row. The result of it is a play-off game at home at The Rec.

Speaking of the challenge ahead on Saturday when facing Sale Sharks, van Graan added: "It's definitely not just another knockout game. I been privileged enough to be involved in Super Rugby semis, URC semis, a World Cup semi-final; this is my first Premiership semi-final and what I've learnt from all of the semis from all the other competitions is that this is not just another game and we're not treating it as just another game. We're sticking to our process but we re excited about this game and we're embracing it.

"Ultimately if you can't enjoy it and you don't see this as a different game then why do we play this sport? Is there extra pressure and expectation? Yes, but we want to be in these games and we've got to perform on Saturday afternoon and we're preparing for that. We're acknowledging that we're up against an opponent that played in the final last year and it's another good team, but that's what you're going to face in a semi-final. Our preparation has been solely on ourselves and we're loving every minute of it.

"We've been growing our game now for the last two seasons. We started off with our defence, our kicking game and our set piece, and we've added so many layers to our attack this season, averaging across all competitions around four tries per game, so we're not going to vary from the way that we play, it's situational and the players in our team are good enough that the system caters for any given situation. We've got a nine and 10 that have incredibly good kicking game; our world class players have played in very high profile games and whether you kick, you run or you pass, it's up to them to get us on the front foot.

"We've got a team that have gone through a lot of experiences and this is new for us now as a group. First semi-final together and that's the beauty of the journey we are on, it's how many firsts have we had this season. It's the first time we've been in the knock-out of the Champions Cup together and now I think it's the first time in nine years we're into a Premiership semi-final. So it's new for us but new means absolutely embracing what we are doing and adapt on the day and that's been something we've been really good at.

"We've been involved in some arm wrestles, some high-scoring games and we've come from behind on multiple occasions and we've also been up by a lot. Who knows what Saturday might bring but for us it's about our game and how good we can be in the semi-final."

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