NATIONAL NEWS - In one of his first interviews as Lions Super Rugby coach, John Mitchell was asked what brand of rugby he would like his team to play.

New to South Africa, but well aware of the humiliation Lions fans had to endure when Dick Muir and Jake White tried to save a ship that was already covered in algae at the bottom of the ocean, he said: “Forwards will do what forwards need to do and backs will do what backs need to do.”

Mitchell clearly didn’t take the job to improve his questionable popularity; he was on a mission to restore pride and the only way he could do that was to start from scratch at Ellis Park.

It didn’t take him very long to realise that his players didn’t have the physical ability to compete with the top teams in the then Super 14 tournament.

The group he was given also needed to make more than one mental adjustment.

In one of his first days in the hot seat, Mitchell walked up to some of the senior players and told them that if they didn’t shape up, they would have to look for work elsewhere.

Some of those players took offence and left while others went on to play the best rugby of their careers.

Many of the players didn’t like him at all, but frustrated fans steadily started returning to Ellis Park as the team started playing the same brand of rugby that saw them go unbeaten in the 2015 Currie Cup competition.

A fable of his tenure is that at the start of one season he instructed his players to run laps around the track at the adjacent Johannesburg Athletics Stadium.

When the players asked how many laps they should do, Mitchell said: “Tap out when you think you’ve had enough.”

What a character test, wrapped in a fitness exercise, few would forget.

If memory serves me right, Derrick Minnie was the last player to give up while then captain Josh Strauss was the first to throw in the towel.

Mitchell’s no-nonsense approach made him very unpopular, but in retrospect, many of those players would never have become the stars they are today had he not forced them out of their comfort zone.

This was a former All Blacks player/coach at work. A guy who had worked with the likes of Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and even Wallaby legend Nathan Sharpe.

From a conditioning point of view, Mitchell said it would take at least three years for the squad to be at a level where they would be able to handle the demands of top-flight rugby.

He brought in former New Zealand marines trainer Wayne Taylor to assist with the strength and conditioning training and within a year the team that had gone two seasons without winning a single Super 14 match, were becoming a vastly-improved team.

Following this revival sponsors soon started showing interest in the Lions and this was great news for a union that was on the verge of being liquidated.

Yes, the Lions had some legacy issues to resolve and in professional sport you need to do one very important thing to get the backing of the guys in suits – who sign the big contracts – and that was winning.

Mitchell ensured that the players were once again seen as the union’s most valuable assets.

Mobile service provider MTN joined the Lions during Mitchell’s time and when they first arrived at Ellis Park they said that his appointment formed part of the reason why they were convinced to invest millions in the team.

MTN’s deal with the Lions ended shortly after Mitchell was disgracefully released from his contract.

His somewhat bullish personality aside, Mitchell succeeded where World Cup winner Jake White had failed miserably. He turned the most unprofessional Super Rugby union in South Africa at the time into one where there was no room for mediocrity.

Considering the politics at the time, a no-nonsense approach was exactly what the Lions needed and with Mitchell calling the shots, the Lions started playing a brand of rugby that, in the long run, set them apart from the rest of South Africa’s Super Rugby hopefuls.

His rugby ideology was passed down to the junior teams at the Lions who, like the senior team, still make use of his training and match tactics.

“When I first joined the Lions I was only a prop and expected to scrum. Since Mitch took over I’ve been working on my passing game, my running game and even my kicking game,” a certain tighthead prop who will be running out for the Stormers noted at the time.

Isn’t that development of skills across the board what makes the All Blacks such a great team? Wasn’t Heyneke Meyer complaining about the lack of skills of South African players in the run-up to the World Cup?

Whether Mitchell would have been the solution to the Stormers’ coaching conundrum is up for debate.

With his track record, chances are that he may have stepped on quite a few toes. He may very well have made a few people very uncomfortable due to his brash approach to the small stuff.

But if history can be the teacher here, he would most definitely have left the Stormers in a far better position than what they find themselves in today.

He would have loved to work with some of the most outstanding backline players in the country and they would have loved playing a brand of rugby where tries are more important than defensive structures.

It was reported that Lions president Kevin de Klerk and Saru President Oregan Hoskins advised the Stormers against Mitchell’s appointment.

If there is any truth in that, South African rugby is in far deeper trouble than we could have ever imagined.

And if the pair had any influence in the final decision process, the brains trust at the Stormers need to hand in their resignations, today.

Let’s just hope the Springboks don’t get invited for a few friendlies in Florida because Mitchell has their number, he has seen South Africa’s weaknesses and will exploit it just like Eddie Jones did in England last year.