Bulls ‘have failed’ coach Mitchell
When John Mitchell was appointed as the executive in charge of rugby for the Bulls 15 months ago, the New Zealander said there needed to be a change in mindset at Loftus Versfeld, not just on the field but also in terms of recruitment, contracting and even on the board.
Those changes do not seem to be forthcoming, which is why the coach is now trying to get out of his contract to join Eddie Jones in the England camp.
The Bulls have confirmed that Mitchell has received an approach from an unnamed team, but at the same time reiterated that he has a contract until October 31, 2019. Those in the know say, however, that Mitchell is looking to leave due to a lack of support from the Loftus Versfeld hierarchy.
“There are two main issues really: the Bulls do need to spend money and their recruitment methods are far from perfect; and the results were actually quite poor, we definitely could have done better. Those two issues cloud each other and neither are black or white.
“Mitch needed security from the board and they were not prepared to give him that. So any reasonable man would hedge his bets. It is a fact that England want him. It’s now all about what the legal implications are of leaving his Bulls contract prematurely,” a source close to Mitchell said.
After they failed to make the Super Rugby play-offs, Mitchell identified the Bulls’ shortcomings as being poor recruitment that focused on quantity rather than quality, a lack of depth and a lack of experienced stars. He aimed to fix those problems by taking firmer control of the high performance programme and trying to acquire leading Springboks like Duane Vermeulen, Frans Malherbe and Jean-Luc du Preez.
The Bulls board, however, turned down his request for more money.
Mitchell has been linked with the defence coach position for the England team, which is ironic because woeful defence was one of the Bulls’ major failings in Super Rugby and Mitchell himself said he would be searching for a specialist defence coach for the franchise.