John Mitchell: "The future's going to be a female coach'

England's head coach on his first Women’s Six Nations, the squad's ambitions at a World Cup and karaoke confidence

- Robert Kitson

A big weekend awaits John Mitchell. On Saturday he turns 60 and the following day he takes charge of his first women's Six Nations game as head coach of England. Can the seen-it-all Kiwi take them to the next level? The union between the bespectacled former All Blacks head coach and an ambitious bunch of Red Roses from a different generation is certainly an intriguing one.

Because when the Rugby Football Union opted against installing a Sarina Wiegman-type figure to deliver the women's World Cup on home soil next year, it did not delight everybody.

Even Mitchell believes the days of men heading up women's programmes are numbered "The future's definitely going to be a female coach" - and the appointment of England's Jo Yapp to the top job in Australia has stirred the whole debate afresh.

On the one hand hiring the much-travelled Mitchell makes a lot of sense. He was just 37 when he became the All Blacks coach in 2001 and his CV has included stints with England's men under Clive Woodward and Eddie Jones. Few coaches, male or female, have a keener global grasp - "My record speaks for itself in terms of winning Test matches and I know this arena like the back of my hand" - of high performance settings. So when Mitchell suggests he was "probably more advanced in terms of dealing with pressure" than other candidates he has the scar tissue to prove it. "When you've been close to the pinnacle of the game... there have been some gold nuggets I've taken from that." Even so, appointing a male supremo at this high-profile juncture was akin, for some, to overlooking Taylor Swift and asking Status Quo to headline instead. Mitchell is no Swiftie and when he sang his squad initiation song there were no Dua Lipa dance moves either. "I've used Wonderwall by Oasis before but on this occasion it was Molly Malone.