Mitchell's All In
MITCHELL'S
ALL IN
Listen to John Mitchell on the England Rugby Podcast: O2 Inside Line
John Mitchell was announced as head coach of the Red Roses in May 2023, making the switch to the women's game almost three decades into his rugby coaching career.
FAMILY AND
UPBRINGING
John and his younger brother were raised in Hāwera, New Zealand, a town of around 5,000 people. Sport was a key part of his upbringing, but it took a while for rugby to become the focus.
“I couldn’t work out when I was younger why the football teams had boots and when I got taken to rugby I had to play in bare feet on frosty mornings. I was thinking whether I was going to go and play football because of the boots.
“All I loved in rugby was that number six was on the back of my jersey. I wanted to slide down the bank and get dirty, I wasn’t too interested in the game.”
A keen basketballer, both his parents having played, Mitchell pursued both sports until his final year of college when his basketball coach said: “you need to make a choice.”
“I hopped on my flatmate’s scooter in Hamilton and went to a rugby club called Fraser Tech and played for them for 14 years.”
He played for both his club and province, Waikato, while working as a quantity surveyor before getting the call up to the All Blacks. Moving to England, he was a player and coach at Sale Sharks during their first year of professionalism.
Throughout his career, John has led some of the best sides in the world, including men's national teams for New Zealand, Ireland and Japan, as well as teams in Australia, South Africa and the USA.
He started his England coaching career in the late nineties before reaching the Rugby World Cup semi-final with the All Blacks in 2003. A return to England in 2018 under Eddie Jones saw the side reach the 2019 final.
In the early days of his Red Roses tenure, Mitchell returned to his home land to oversee their inaugural WXV1 campaign. England won all three of their games and were crowned champions after their final victory against the reigning world champions, New Zealand's Black Ferns.
“I had a cup of coffee with a couple of people from England Rugby around what sort of coach they were after with the Red Roses.
“Once I committed, I promised myself I couldn’t premeditate the differences. I got to New Zealand for the WXV and started building relationships with the players and staff. Now it’s just about trying to become a better team and improve our performances.”
LIFE CHANGING
EVENTS
In 2010, John's life changed forever. While working as Director of Rugby at the Lions in South Africa, his home was broken into.
“It was a stormy night and, as typical Kiwis, we probably didn't respect the security enough. We just left our windows open. But clearly, somebody had been following our pattern for a period of time and they obviously saw the branding on the vehicles and found a weakness in the complex.
“At two in the morning I woke up and thought it was my strength and conditioning coach Wayne Taylor playing a game on me and then I realised that I was actually in trouble.”
He was tied up and stabbed as he bartered for his life for “what seemed like an eternity. Wayne had fled to try and get help and wasn’t sure what he was going to come back to.
"Suddenly, I heard African voices. I wasn’t sure whether it was more people involved, but it was the police.
“I had insomnia for a while and light became my friend during that period of trying to deal with it. I think I got over it a lot quicker because I knew where I’d been touched and how I’d been hurt. You go from being like I’m in proper trouble here to a point where I actually wantto survive. It’s not something you want to go through.
“It’s made me show more courage and take the handbrake off. If you decide to do something, be totally all in, stop being cautious and afraid. Things happen for a reason, not that I wanted that to happen, but it probably was the wakeup call that I needed.”
Listen to John Mitchell on the England Rugby Podcast: O2 Inside Line
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