Mitchell: We must feed off the hatred towards England

Coach motivated by hostility against team Jones to make late call on Tuilagi’s fitness

It was not until he was spat at by a Welsh supporter that John Mitchell truly understood the depth of hostility England engender from other nations.

Now in his second spell as a coach at Twickenham, Mitchell has urged England’s players to embrace the animosity, by adopting the old Millwall mantra of “no one likes us, we don’t care”.

Australia’s visit on Saturday for the final Test of the Quilter international series represents one of England’s keenest rivalries. As a New Zealander, Mitchell seems more comfortable discussing his adopted country’s status as the most disliked team in world rugby than many previous English coaches. The task, as the defence coach sees it, is to harness that depth of passion in the same way opposition teams manage when facing English opposition.

“I don’t think too many people like us as England, do they?” Mitchell said. “It’s important to understand that and realise we can actually reverse that as well in terms of our own thinking, in the way that we go about things and understand how that is to us in the way that we challenge it. Because when you don’t get it right, you just have to look at the satisfaction and the gloating on the other side to realise how important it is. So, you might as well get in first and get it done.

“I still remember training at a university in Scotland and just the language. Then at Wembley [against Wales in 1999] walking down the tunnel at half-time and a little bit of a ‘goober’ ended up on my tracksuit. I remember those things and understand how important it is to win when you play for England – and every time that England performs. To have had that experience and receive the emotions that come from that on the other side, it certainly does motivate me personally.”

Whether that is true of the modern-day players is less certain. Before England played Scotland at Murrayfield, centre Ben Te’o described the history of sport’s oldest international fixture as “completely irrelevant”, which England promptly lost 25-13.

For Mitchell, who harbours crystal-clear memories of lost Grand Slams against Wales in 1999 and Scotland in 2000 when he was forwards coach under Sir Clive Woodward, the past most certainly matters. “I still think there’s a place for you to realise how much it means and the fact you hate coming second to somebody that you dislike,” Mitchell said.

“Ultimately, you’ve got to put that into that context, but you’ve got to channel it in the right way. We live in a high-performance world, talking about process, not necessarily talking about emotional hooks that can provide you with necessary motivation around the context of the game. So, yeah, I think it [history] is very relevant.”

Eddie Jones, the England head coach, is set to make an 11th-hour call on Manu Tuilagi’s inclusion in his squad. Tuilagi, who has been suffering from a groin injury, took part in group training after undergoing an individual warm-up, but Mitchell believes that the Leicester centre will be restricted to a replacement role at best.

“Experience tells me that would be a challenging selection [starting him],” Mitchell said. “If I put my head coach hat on, I’d be calibrating