Stay-at-home Mitchell needs to be hands on
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JOHN Mitchell polarises opinion in Rugby Union more than anyone with the possible exception of Eddie Jones. That’s why, following the New Zealander’s appointment as England defence coach by Jones this week, this twinning of two rugby obsessives has been forecast as a disaster in waiting by an assortment of Southern Hemisphere commentators.
Mitchell is one of rugby’s Marmite men, and the love-hate stuff surrounding the controversial Kiwi coach has been aired widely since it was announced that it will cost the RFU £500,000 to secure his services until the end of the 2019 World Cup.
Combine the RFU’s parlous financial state with Mitchell’s chequered coaching career and it adds up to one hell of a punt – especially one which according to the death’s-head brigade south of the Equator will leave England’s World Cup hopes stone dead.
Jones had been turned down by Andy Farrell, his first choice defence coach, who opted to stay with Ireland. For the record, the breakdown of fees for Mitchell, as second choice, is in the region of £300,000 for Mitchell, and a further £200,00 to buy him out of his prior contract with the Pretoria-based South African Blue Bulls franchise.
One of the biggest surprises is that the RFU have agreed to Mitchell, who lives in South Africa, commuting from his family home in Durban on a flexitime basis worth £25,000 a month.
The RFU have refused to confirm how many days the contract requires Mitchell to spend in England, but Red Rose head coach Jones was quick to defend the arrangement at Thursday’s training squad announcement.
He said: “He’ll be here full-time for the job but he won’t live here full-time, if that makes sense? Between Monday and Friday there’s nothing for him to do here when we haven’t got a Test match. He can do that anywhere in the world. He can be in Starbucks in Barnes, or Starbucks in Manchester, or in Northampton. You don’t need to physically be here.”
Asked how much time Mitchell and attack coach Scott Wisemantel will spend at weekends seeing games, Jones responded: “We don’t get access to the players. They’ll watch all the games, every game, (and) that’s the great thing about technology these days, you don’t need to be there to watch. They’ll give feedback to the players where appropriate. They’ll do all their responsibilities they need to do.”
This appeared to be at odds with a Jones assertion a few minutes earlier where he extolled the virtues of watching players live, rather than on television. “I take selection seriously. I want to make sure that when I’m selecting, I’m selecting the best players. You can’t see that on television,” Jones said.
He added: “A game of Test match rugby is 100 minutes. The ball is in play 40 minutes. So if you are a No.10 you might touch the ball 15 times for one second. So, you’ve only got the ball in hand for 15 seconds, so what you do the other 39 minutes 45 seconds is vital – and you don’t see that on television. What you do off the ball is massively influential in the game.”
Whether Mitchell can do the job effectively from his Durban base remains to be seen. Another unknown is how well his intensity, and sometimes abrasive demand for high standards, goes down with an England squad who are mainly the offspring of a cushioned academy culture.
In his 22 years as a coach the former Waikato and NZ No.8 has held 16 different coaching jobs in six countries. These include becoming the youngest All Black coach, at 37, in 2001, before being let go despite 23 wins in 28 Tests after losing to Australia – coached then by Jones – in the 2003 World Cup semi-finals.
Since then Mitchell has faced player revolts at the Western Force and the Jo’burg-based Lions, where one former player, Jonathan Mokuena tweeted: “We are humans not animals…you don’t curse and swear at adults who are married and already have children – that is not how you treat people.”
He also faced criticism as head coach of the USA for refusing to relocate and commuting from South Africa, before leaving the job in 2017 with eight wins from 19 Tests. However, Sale’s USA international fly-half AJ MacGinty believes that Mitchell will be success ful with England. MacGinty says he is a detailed analyst who is well qualified to help England build an “aggressive defence” of the sort that he developed at the Hurricanes when they won the 2016 Super Rugby title. He adds: “I don’t have a bad word to say about him when he coached the US, and while he is intense you need that when you want to play well at the highest level.”
“Whether Mitchell can do the job effectively from his Durban base remains to be seen”
Jones insists that Mitchell is a highly-experienced operator who has a record of improving teams, and that he can do the same for England.
“Coaching is always about – at our level particularly – relationships and getting organised. You’ve got 15 players, or 30 players, come in, and you say the word ‘width’ and this player thinks this and this player thinks that.”
He continues: “The first thing at our level is we’ve got to get them organised and get them to understand the same language. And then it’s about developing relationships with the players. You look at his track record, he’s got a first class track record. He’s had some dud runs, we’ve all had that. It’s part of the learning.”
Much of ‘the learning’ Jones talks about should have been done well before now, and if the England defence needs a serious makeover – as the Six Nations decline and South Africa tour strongly suggests – Mitchell does not have much time.
His contribution as defence coach starts at the training camp in Bristol today, with the first register of whether he has added more bite coming in the Autumn series. The heat is on Mitchell from the get-go, and Durban might be too far away for the hands-on work required to hone the England defence.
