Just occasionally in sport there is no escaping one’s past. Once upon a time Warren Gatland and John Mitchell were house-mates in Hamilton, sharing car rides to training and much else besides. Little did either of them guess they would one day be reunited as rival coaches in the cauldron of a Six Nations Wales-England encounter in Cardiff.
Both men have taken the road less travelled in the intervening 30 years but, if anyone knows Gatland inside out, it is Mitchell, the former All Black coach in charge of England’s forwards. As well as being Gatland’s provincial captain, the 54-year-old Mitchell played more than 100 times alongside him in the Waikato pack and knows exactly which buttons his old friend will be pushing on Saturday.
It will also revive distant memories of the days when they played club rugby against each other for local arch-rivals Hamilton Old Boys and Fraser-Tech. Emotions would run so high Mitchell would even move out of their shared house the night before the games to ensure nothing diluted his pre-match focus.
“Whenever we played each other there was always competitive tension,” Mitchell said. Plenty of water has flowed down the Waikato river since but the couple’s sporting fortunes seem fated to be forever intertwined.
Mitchell can also remember the day Gatland, a student teacher at the time, took a labouring job to earn a little more cash. “He had to do some extra work to survive but he gave up drain laying after a day because of the blisters,” said Mitchell, who worked as a quantity surveyor during rugby’s last days of amateurism.
On a rugby pitch Gatland was less easily deterred. “He was a very good thrower of the ball and an exceptional scrummager,” Mitchell said. “He’s brave, he’s intelligent and he’s got a good way of motivating people. He’s a good bugger, funny as well.”
With Sean Fitzpatrick proving impossible to shift as New Zealand’s first-choice hooker, Gatland never won a full cap but he and Mitchell toured together with the All Blacks and have coached in virtually every major rugby continent. Gatland’s achievement in taking the British and Irish Lions to New Zealand in 2017 and securing a drawn series should, in Mitchell’s opinion, not be lightly dismissed.
“To take the Lions there and to have an opportunity to win that series, that was huge. It was unfortunate New Zealand played some games with him with the red nose caricature and stuff which wasn’t called for but that probably motivated him as well.
“Warren is clearly smart and tactical about how he goes about things. He’s a very good head coach and he’s also surrounded by a good Wales coaching group. They’re smart and that’s why they continue to get better. But our focus is not entirely on them. It’s on improving our own game. It’s Wales versus England, it’s not about Gats or me. We’ve got our own standards to meet and it’s extremely important to us that we take another step.”
Mitchell is equally aware from first-hand experience just how passionate Welsh supporters can be on these sort of occasions. In 1999, when Wales scored their celebrated last-gasp victory over England at Wembley, Mitchell was part of England’s coaching staff and has previously recalled being spat at as he walked down the tunnel towards the dressing-rooms at half-time.
“I remember that day. I’ve obviously experienced coaching the All Blacks in Cardiff as well, so I’m under no illusions what we’re walking into. But if you focus on that stuff and not the clarity with which you have to play, that can be your undoing. We’ve got to walk towards it and look forward to it.”
The clutch of English players coached by Gatland on the Lions tour are certainly ready for a full-on examination. “What sticks out from that Lions tour is that you know for a fact he’ll get his team right to play,” said Jamie George, the Saracens and England hooker. “They will be right on the edge, ready to go and physically in a really good place. Warren’s very good at that. We have to make sure that likewise we are ready to go.”
Wales are continuing to monitor the condition of the fly-half Dan Biggar, who tweaked a knee playing for Northampton against Sale on Saturday. The full-back Leigh Halfpenny has also returned to full training for the first time since he was concussed against Australia in Cardiff in November.