‘Sledging will be off the charts’: Alex Mitchell faces Cobus Reinach after Northampton rivalry

For three years, Alex Mitchell lived in the shadow of Cobus Reinach at Franklin’s Gardens. On Saturday night, the Northampton apprentice will step into the bright lights of the Stade de France playing directly against his former master as equals in a World Cup semi-final.

Of all the many sub-plots and head-to-heads in the replay of the 2019 final between England and South Africa, none will be as closely choreographed or as competitive as the battle of the starting scrum-halves. “I can see those two trying to get under each other’s skin,” Northampton head coach Sam Vesty told Telegraph Sport. “I can definitely see Coby saying something to get under Mitch’s skin and he will respond in kind. The sledging will be off the charts, it will be a great contest.”

For his first three seasons as a senior Northampton player, Mitchell was practically rooted to the bench behind Reinach, already a World Cup winner and eight years his senior. Of his first 32 games, 28 were as a replacement. Mitchell was given the task of studying Reinach, not just for his technical work around the breakdown but for how he imposed his personality upon the game.

Even if Reinach wore the starting shirt, the competition in training remained intense. “It was friendly but both guys are incredibly competitive,” Vesty said. “They wanted to push each other and they wanted to win. That meant those two just going against each other whether that was running races, one on one stuff, kicking drills, passing drills. They pushed each other a lot. Mitch wanted to get on the pitch, Cobus wanted to keep his place. It was a great rivalry that made them both better players.”

Inevitably, Mitchell’s frustration grew from being the understudy and he has admitted to growing a slight gut after indulging in too much in fast food and beers after matches. Northampton, however, knew what a talent they had on their hands and when Reinach departed for Montpellier in 2020, they chose to place their faith in Mitchell rather than shop for a high-profile replacement.

“I think Alex is potentially a world-class player,” Chris Boyd, Northampton’s director of rugby, told Telegraph Sport that summer. “Using a cricket analogy, he does not have many runs on the board, but he is extremely high potential. You have got to let your high potentials bloom otherwise you would just suppress them.”

The vote of confidence has been more than repaid. Over the past two seasons, Mitchell has the highest total of tries and assists of any player in the Premiership. It is no coincidence that Northampton have also been the league’s leading try-scorers in that time. “Mitch is a real heads-up rugby player, one of the very best,” Vesty said. “His strengths lie in the fact that his passing game is as good as anyone’s and his kicking game has improved hugely over the last three to four years. His ability to play what he sees and find space for himself and others. There are not many people who can do that. He is right up there with the best in the Premiership, right up there with the best in the world.”

After making a try-scoring debut for England against Tonga in 2021, Mitchell would have to bide his time until Steve Borthwick took charge as head coach, making four replacement appearances in this year’s Six Nations. Hence it was a considerable surprise when Mitchell was cut from Borthwick’s 33-man World Cup squad at the start of August, but strangely that did not dent the 25-year-old’s faith.

“The thing I laugh about now and find slightly odd is when Mitch came out of camp I chatted to him and he said ‘I am pretty sure I will go’,” Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby said. “He said ‘there are four games to go, there are only three nines in there.’ He was so confident and adamant that he was going that it was almost like he had had a premonition. He was very, very sure of himself.”

Jack van Poortvliet’s ankle injury provided that opportunity for Mitchell to not just come back into the squad but to leapfrog veterans Ben Youngs and Danny Care at the head of the scrum-half pecking order. Again that faith has largely been repaid. For all the plaudits that George Ford received for kicking all of England’s points in their opening 27-10 victory against Argentina, attack coach Richard Wigglesworth made sure that Mitchell also received his flowers.

“George got a lot of the headlines but his half-back partner controlled it when we were down to 14 men,” Wigglesworth said. “His skill-set, he executed that brilliantly, which was what we needed at the time.”

It has not all been smooth sailing. Northampton and England operate very different attacking systems and sometimes Mitchell has appeared to be caught in two minds about when to deploy what Dowson calls his “sniping superstrength”. Yet Wigglesworth says his most impressive characteristic has been his composure. “He’s quite unfazed,” Wigglesworth said. “He’s not a player who seems to carry a lot of worry, which is a real strength.”

Opposite his mentor-turned-rival, England will need Mitchell’s cool head in the white heat of a semi-final.