The wind is whipping along the terrace at the back of England’s Teddington training base, rattling the protective canopies overhead, but John Mitchell is presenting an image of perfect tranquillity. Pupils scanning in an ever-considered manner from behind the clear-framed eyewear that have become his trademark, a Red Roses bucket hat adorns his familiar dome, the head coach fresh off the training paddock as preparations intensify for a Rugby World Cup for which England expects.
Mitchell’s squad came together at the start of June; they will not properly disperse, they hope, until after a trophy is lifted at Twickenham on 27 September. A team that has been unbeaten since World Cup final heartbreak in Auckland are fully focussed on ensuring they go one better this time around. If the New Zealander’s appointment raised eyebrows in 2023 – Mitchell had never worked in the women’s game – it was for this period that he was so coveted as England prepare for a tournament that, for many reasons, they will feel they have to win.
“I think people see it as an easy team to coach and that might look like that from the results,” Mitchell explains, having not yet lost in the job. “But to me it’s a very challenging programme that gets me up every morning.
“They give you a lot of energy back. They’re highly driven. They’re highly competitive. They don’t like sitting second in the pecking order.
“They all want to make it. They all want to get better. And I think they’re hungry as well because they haven’t got something done in 11 years. So to be part of that and to lead that means I’ve got to pay attention to where the team needs to improve.”
Mitchell’s desire to lead a programme again was a key factor in his desire to take on the role; it helped, too, that he was based in Surrey and already familiar with the English ecosystem from two stints as an assistant with the men’s team. He emerged as the chosen candidate to take the Red Roses into the World Cup with something of an outsider’s edge, the 61-year-old carrying with him no preconceptions of the job he was about to take on but the experience of a broad coaching career that began almost three decades ago.
His buy-in since taking the role has been clear; the bucket hat is a nod to that. In his time as coach, Mitchell has popped up in TikTok videos and been greeted by a Being John Malkovich-esque room full of cut-outs of his head. It is a culture rather different to that which he oversaw with the All Blacks at the turn of the century – yet the squad all suggest they have been encouraged to embrace and celebrate their somewhat idiosyncratic identities.
The scrutiny heightens, though, as the World Cup looms ever larger and the focus will be on ensuring a side unbeaten in their last 25 games remains ahead of the chasing pack. Mitchell, and England, are not yet considering the threats that Canada, New Zealand or France might pose, knowing that they have to get out of the group first, but setting standards has been a consistent motivating force in recent years.
Their preparations for the tournament will include a trip to Treviso, the sort of warm-weather camp now commonplace for men’s sides ahead of a World Cup but believed to be the first of its kind for England’s women. Having made clarity of communication a priority in his tenure, most of Mitchell’s players will know by the time they arrive back from Italy on 12 July where the stand in the pecking order before the official World Cup squad is named 12 days later.
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“It will probably be our most uncomfortable training camp of all of them because it will be hot and you’ll get bothered,” Mitchell says of the week in Treviso. “The amount that we’ve layered on our game will put them under a lot of questions through scenarios, the unfairness that comes in the games through cards, those sorts of things. The play to rest ratios will be probably a little bit lower as well.
“I think it’s really important to go away from your country and that will create connection as well. The heat will in itself create its own duress. I’d rather be ready for every eventuality. If we don’t create that exposure then we’re probably going to let ourselves down, like the last World Cup [where England’s Lydia Thompson was sent off in the first half].”
Mitchell will balance the need to develop cohesion with getting minutes into his wider squad in two warm-up games against Spain and France ahead of the opening fixture of the World Cup against the United States in Sunderland on 22 August. After defence coach Sarah Hunter’s return from maternity leave, it is a settled staff with no further additions planned before the tournament.
A strong CV possessed by the Kiwi coach does have one glaring omission. Mitchell is yet to be part of a World Cup win, his All Blacks in 2003 undone by Australia and, a little, themselves at the semi-final stage and Eddie Jones’s England beaten by South Africa in the final in 2019 while Mitchell was overseeing their defence. This would appear a golden opportunity to correct the record – though he insists his focus is fully on the team.
“I think I’ve been in that position where you individually put yourself first,” Mitchell admits. “I think what the game has taught me the older I’ve gotten is that you just put yourself second, and just control what you can control, and deal with whatever happens. Ultimately, I think when you do that, you enjoy it more and there’s less pressure on yourself to do that.
“This team’s attracted to consistency. It’s not in a hurry to give that up. It knows it’s going to be challenged in its home World Cup and we know that we’ve got to earn the right to contest the final. There’s plenty to do and that’s why we’re working hard into the tournament.”
