John Mitchell has England dreaming of World Cup glory - nine years to the month after coming close to losing his life in South Africa.
Mitchell is the Kiwi coach Eddie Jones hired to build a defence capable of keeping out the best teams in world rugby.
Five games into England’s campaign they have done just that, conceding four tries with Australia and New Zealand managing just one apiece.
“They definitely put teams under a lot of pressure defensively,” Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus said yesterday. “John Mitchell has got a lot to do with that.”
A repeat performance in Yokohama on Saturday and Erasmus will know England have every chance of being crowned world champions for the first time since 2003.
Such a momentous achievement would complete some decade for Mitchell, given he was stabbed twice during a break-in at his house in Johannesburg in 2010 whilst employed as coach of the city’s Lions team.
Mitchell was woken by two intruders and admits: “it was a hell of a shock to the system. It was basically fight or flight. I was like ’man, I’m in trouble here. I could possibly lose my life’.
“Out of that came a fighting attitude. I thought, ’I’m not ready to give in yet’, though nor was I equipped with the tools to deal with the situation.
“People have since asked why didn’t I have a gun, or a taser? I didn’t have time for all that stuff. I was very, very lucky.”
Up until a year ago he was still dealing with the after-effects. “I wouldn’t say I’ve entirely got my deep sleep back,” Mitchell said then. “I’m always aware of noises.”
What the incident did for the former All Blacks boss was to put rugby into perspective. He talks of how it “sharpened him up big time”, enabling him to make “critical decisions on what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to go about it”.
Prior to the attack he says he was very hard on himself, a legacy of losing the New Zealand job after semi-final defeat, ironically to an Eddie Jones-coached Australia side in 2003.
“I’d fallen into the outcome bubble, I’d lost perspective because I was wanting to prove a point,” said the 55-year old. “I fell into the trap of being generic in the way I handled personalities.
“I wouldn’t say I’m now relaxed about everything but you don’t last if you don’t evolve and you don’t learn.”
So good a job has Mitchell done that in June, with Jones’ full blessing, England extended his contract until 2021.
Not that he is looking beyond Saturday where he predicts “we are going to witness the two most powerful rugby teams in the world” and warns: “the the gain line is going to be huge”.
“Defence has been, I think, a common thread that’s come out of World Cups over the years and it’s going to be really important again on the weekend.
“It is a mentality thing. South Africa are probably the one side in the world that can create pressure like no other team.
“But what is great is that there is now another team that can create that pressure - and that is us.”
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