The Force certainly isn't with muddled Mitch

OPINION: It's been a scorcher lately, but even hotter for Western Force Super 14 rugby coach John Mitchell.

The situation "Mitch" found himself in with his players threatening revolt and a judge investigating his future has been one of the stupidest in sport.

It's so weird I can't even be polite about it. Mitchell's gotta be the dumbest guy on the planet.

Can this dude not take a hint. Thirty players and 10 staff issue a vote of no-confidence in him, and he still hangs on for grim death. Memo Mitch: that means they'd be pleased if you pissed off.

Mitchell, for all his hard work and dedication to rugby, has totally missed the point when it comes to the meaning of running a team. He was arrogant when All Blacks coach and it seems that trait has surfaced (again) overseas.

Mutual respect and a certain chemistry between a coach and his players underpins any good team. It's not a popularity contest – players don't have to like a coach – but they absolutely must respect him or her.

It's clear that Mitchell has lost that respect and the player-coach chemistry has been blown to smithereens. So the question begs to be answered: how in the world can he be an effective coach in an environment where his club restricts his contact with his own players?

If you wrote this situation into a television soap opera people wouldn't buy it because it's so ridiculous. In Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22, if you flew suicidal combat missions you were crazy, so you didn't have to fly them. All you had to do was ask. But that's where the catch came in. Asking meant you were sane and therefore you had to fly.

The Western Force have created their very own classic coaching Catch-22. Coaching is a creative exercise, it is the art of getting people to do things they don't think they can do. A coach moves people, shakes them up, points out directions and leads. But to do that you've got to have some interaction with your team and Mitchell is now a coach without a united team.

With Damocles' sword hanging over his head just how much pressure can he put on his players before they cry harassment? Damned if you do and damned if you don't. It certainly doesn't get any more bizarre than that.

And Mitch appears to be his own worst enemy.

"It is going to require all of us to pull together to be totally committed and obligated in putting our hands up moving forward as a group, and caring about each other," he spouted last week.

Caring about each other? Come on John. Get a life. "I don't think I need to explain my style – I have had success in the past with groups and there is no reason why we won't gain success here as a group going forward.

"I need to evolve my leadership going forward and I am looking forward to that."

Pathetic really, that he can't see the handwriting on the wall. Western Force club administrators are no better. They remind me of the guy who wants to dump his girlfriend, but doesn't have the courage or guts to tell her that it's just not working between them, so he strings her along, treating her in such a shabby manner that eventually it becomes painfully obvious to her that this jerk is no longer interested.

Sport is black and white. It'll either be a good experience or a bad one, depending on the people running teams.

The major responsibility for making a team good is the coach and if Mitchell, by some stroke of insanity, hangs in with the Force, I certainly don't see their season being a bowl of laughs.

- © Fairfax NZ News