House divided for old Waikato mates
AS Waikato provincial team-mates 30 years ago, Warren Gatland and John Mitchell used to share a house together in Hamilton.
They played in different club sides though, so whenever Hamilton Old Boys took on Fraser Tech, one or the other would move out for a night ahead of the game. It was too competitive for the pair to be under the same roof.
On Saturday that suburban New Zealand rivalry will go international and be rekindled in the blast furnace of the Six Nations, when the Wales head coach and the England defence guru cross swords at the Principality Stadium.
Gatland has masterminded five wins over England during his time with Wales – and derailed their World Cup in 2015. Before he steps down later this year he would dearly love to send the chariot careering off the road one more time.
If it pays to know your enemy, as Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu once advised, then Mitchell is a handy inside operative. If anyone is aware of what makes Gatland tick it is his old house-mate.
Mitchell recalled: “In those days Waikato used to train in Cambridge 30 or 40 miles away so we would carpool. It used to be in my car and naturally in our adolescence and younger adulthood we probably talked about other things but we did chat rugby too.
“I had an Austin Kimberley. It was a like an open lounge with a fire it was that big. It was certainly a very expensive vehicle which the guys seemed to enjoy as there was plenty of room in it. There were about six of us in the car.
“I remember Gats training as a teacher. He had to do some extra work to survive but he gave up drainlaying after a day because of the blisters!
“Gats was always a very positive team-mate. I was his captain. He just had the ability to manage people very well. He’s got a good way of motivating people.”
The pair were also brothers as ghost All Blacks. Mitchell, a back-row, was uncapped despite playing six tour matches for New Zealand on a 1993 trip to the UK. Gatland, a hooker, sat on the bench behind Sean Fitzpatrick for 20 successive Tests between 1988 and 1991 without coming on.
“He was a very good thrower of the ball and an exceptional scrummager,” said Mitchell. “But it was him and Fitzpatrick. He just had to watch Fitzy most of the time.
“Even when we played for Waikato I think he had to wait a whole year before he actually got a start as a provincial player.
“But he contributed immensely on those long tours as a midweek hooker for New Zealand.”
There seems a clear psychological link between nearly-man player and overachieving coach. Three Six Nations titles, including two Grand Slams, and a World Cup semi-final in 2011 suggest Gatland fits the identikit.
Mitchell said: “Clearly he’s been a long-time coach, the majority of it successful. He’s had to basically grow a rugby nation as well. And he’s done that well. He hasn’t accepted any limits, continuing to raise the bar with Wales, which gives you an idea as to the way he leads.”
The obvious final step in the coaching career of Gatland – who joked last month England could not afford him – is to take over the All Blacks when Steve Hansen steps down after the World Cup. The 55-year-old’s main rival for the job is Hansen’s current assistant Ian Foster, incredibly the standoff in that same Waikato team. “It was an extraordinary group of people who went on to coaching for some reason,” said Mitchell, All Blacks coach between 2001 and 2003. “New Zealand is tribal so people in Gats’s community would respect him highly. “People outside of the Waikato, some would have a different view, but overall he has massive respect. He is clearly smart and tactical about how he goes about things. “He’s a very good head coach and he’s surrounded by a good coaching group as well with Wales. They are pretty good and have been improving progressively over a long period of time.”