John Mitchell makes shock claim about getting tied up and stabbed in South Africa, labelling it ‘one of the best things that has ever happened to me’
England women's head John Mitchell
Former All Blacks coach John Mitchell has described getting attacked and stabbed in South Africa many years ago as one of the best things that has ever happened to him.
Now 61 and fresh from coaching the England women’s team to a Six Nations Grand Slam title ahead of the 2025 Rugby World Cup, the Kiwi has reflected on his lengthy coaching career and claims that an attack in 2010 at his Johannesburg home was pivotal in helping him to become a better person.
Failure at the Rugby World Cup 2003 with New Zealand haunted ‘hard man’ Mitchell and it took what woundingly happened seven years later at a time when in charge of the Super Rugby Lions for him to radically reshape his values and the way he went about doing things.
Appearing on the latest episode of Coaching Culture with Ben Herring, Mitchell spent an hour looking back over a coaching career that included assisting Eddie Jones’ England men’s team to reach the final of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Michell now takes the approach of prioritising his understanding of each player as a person first rather than solely evaluating them on their contribution to winning, but it took an assault 15 years ago at home for him to make this transformative change.
“I promised myself that I would never fall into that mindset again”
“I did chase it,” he said about his desire to be a winner.
“I got a taste of it early, wanted more of it, and then after the (2003) World Cup semi-final, rightly or wrongly I was pretty hard on myself for four years and I chased outcomes and didn’t have consistent process or methodology that was going to allow me to consistently present the teams opportunities to win.
“The falling into the ‘outcome bubble’, once I got attacked in South Africa, the challenge that evening, waking up from that was, ‘Hold on, I need to sort some things out here’. I promised myself that I would never fall into that mindset again, so now it’s basically enjoy it.”
Intrigued by this revelation, Herring asked Mitchell to explain what specifically happened to him in South Africa.
“I started coaching the Lions and myself and the strength and conditioning coach, Wayne Taylor, we were in a place in Hyde Park, which is quite a good area in Sandton, and we just left ourselves exposed because one of the windows was open and they jumped in,” he said.
“They basically got us two in the morning in my sleep. I basically thought it might have been Wayne playing a practical joke, and then I was tied up with mobile phone wire and curtain cord wire and stabbed in the process of waking up.
“It seemed like an eternity but I managed to negotiate my way out of it and I was very fortunate. So from that point onwards, I thought I needed to change a bit.
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“But also there was another factor: when I was in Nice during the World Cup in 2007 with mates and I was in a Japanese restaurant where the All Blacks had played France in that quarter-final and they had that defeat.
“All of a sudden these emails and texts start coming through from people from four years ago saying, ‘See, it can happen to somebody else’. That was also quite meaningful because there was no way I wanted to get any joy or growth out of somebody else’s misfortune as a coach. So again, for some reason, my lenses were on the outcome and I just wanted to change that around.
“I was chasing outcomes, my values weren’t in a good place and I was a hard person. I was hard so I thought, ‘S***, those things need to change’. It was cool. It was one of the best things that has ever happened to me to be fair.
“Because I put all my eggs in one basket, then you lose sight of your family, you lose sight of your friends. I lost sight of my community and my support community that gives me energy and socials. They are the critical ones because the game will come and go as we see as coaches but your family and your friends, they are your rock solid.
“So that’s probably where you get your balance and perhaps I didn’t have my balance right and then I made some decisions as a result of that based on what I value. It was almost like what you call a rejig really. I wish I had the awareness earlier without having to go through that experience but sometimes the world will just create that.”
