How the World Cup 2019 defeat to Springboks can help Mitchell's Red Roses

SPOTLIGHT: John Mitchell is confident that the lessons he learned from losing the 2019 World Cup Final with England’s men’s team can help him guide the country’s women’s stars to global glory.

Six years ago, Mitchell was an assistant coach of the England team that suffered a defeat to the Springboks in the World Cup Final in Japan.

Now the 61-year-old is head coach of the Red Roses, who are bidding to become the first senior England team to win a World Cup on home soil when they take on Canada at Twickenham on Saturday.

Mitchell took charge of the Red Roses following their agonising 31-34 loss to the Black Ferns in the COVID-delayed 2022 Final in Auckland.

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The former Bulls and All Blacks coach stated his experiences in 2019 – particularly England’s draining semifinal victory over New Zealand before falling to South Africa – still shape his thinking.

“I still look back on 2019, and the semifinal was a huge performance, and I think we sometimes as coaches don’t recognise the emotional tank plus the physical tank that is emptied on such occasions,” said Mitchell.

“We possibly in 2019 didn’t deal with the emotional tank, refill it well enough.”

Determined to avoid a repeat, Mitchell has managed his squad carefully following their hard-fought 35-17 semifinal win over France.

“The way we have prepared this week is we have made sure we [were off for] a couple of days after the semifinal performance to be able to come in and get focused on the plan we need to execute on the weekend.”

Additional source: AFP