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The NZ Sunday Star Times sports writer, Greg Ford, has come out with some startling revelations about coach John Mitchell and the Western Force Super 14 franchise which, if true, indicate that there is an intense struggle between the coach and the majority of the players and staff over control of the club.
The implication in Ford’s account is that Mitchell is hanging onto his job, pending a review of his methods by a retired judge, mainly because his manager, the redoubtable John Fordham, has threatened legal action if his power of the team is not restored. And because paying Mitchell out of his contract will cost the cash-strapped franchise over $1 million.
Ford also claims that while Mitchell remains the coach of the Western Force ‘technically,’ the training of the team has been done by the assistant coach, John Mulvihill.
In his Sun-Herald rugby column this week, the former Queensland and Australian coach John Connolly, says that 30 out of the 36 and 10 of the coaching staff have signed a petition of complaint about Mitchell.
Connolly makes the point that Mitchell is in a ‘tough place’ because it’s easier to sack one coach than most of your players and coaching staff.
He might have noted that when the management of the ACT Brumbies were faced with a much smaller revolt by a group of senior players against their successful coach David Nucifora, it was Nucifora who was sacked.
The gist of Connolly’s article is that “how a coach handles the pressure is the key to how he survives.’ The implication in the article is that Mitchell is very poor at handling pressure. Connolly instances the fact that Mitchell ‘left the All Blacks under a cloud because of the way he supposedly handled issues.”
This Connolly attack comes a week after a similar sort of attack against Mitchell was made by Brendan Cannon.
Cannon’s argument was that it is alarming for the future success of a club when the majority of its players and coaching staff are in rebellion against their coach.
Cannon was a founding member of the Western Force, the first player recruited by Mitchell. He’s been the heart and soul of the club, even after he was forced to retire with neck injuries.
Journalists are inveterate conspiracy theorists, of course, but there seems to be something of a whiff of a takeover attempt in all the criticisms made against Mitchell.
And why is this so?
In my opinion, certain parties are interested in taking over Mitchell’s job if the review forces the board of the Western Force into sacking him.
This brings us back to Greg Ford’s article which was entitled, “The mystery of John Mitchell.”
Ford solves the mystery in a way by explaining that Mitchell appears to be a Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde character. He can be “the smiling, charming, successful, smart, athletic family man – or, the devious, scheming, ruthless, ticking time bomb.”
It’s now generally forgotten that Mitchell won the Western Force coaching job against an ARU directive by the then chief executive Gary Flowers that the job had to go to an Australian.
Fordham, who is also the manager of Ricky Stuart, another coach who has a tempestuous relationship with the media and sometimes with some of his players, lobbied brilliantly for his client, Mitchell.
The rugby media was subjected to a charm offensive on the part of Fordham and Mitchell which turned the tide in the favour of the New Zealander.
Here, I’ll make a confession.
During the lead-up to the appointment of Mitchell as the coach of the Western Force, I’d been critical of the attempt to give-up on the policy of appointing non-Australians to a Super 14 coaching job. My argument was that, first, there were plenty of competent Australian coaches who could do the job, and, second, that Mitchell was not so much better than any of the good Australian candidates that he deserved the special treatment a Robbie Deans might be given.
Thirdly, Australian rugby did not want to get into the same position as European rugby of giving away all the top coaching jobs to outsiders and, thereby, reducing the chances of a national coaching the national side.
Fordham must have read these criticisms.
He arranged for me to have a chat with Mitchell before he went across to Perth. I found him to be a very pleasant, intense, knowledgeable and family-oriented man. On the occasions I’ve contacted him about rugby matters, say what players and coaches look out for with certain referees, he’s been helpful and intelligent.
A perfect Dr Jeckyll.
But Ford reports that at North Harbour last season, when the Force were struggling against the Auckland Blues, the Force’s coach’s box was near the media benches and hard-nosed reporters were startled to hear that “the air was blue with profanities.”
The Force is not with John Mitchell, it appears, in more ways than one.