Riki Flutey is still waiting for John Mitchell’s message back.<\/p>\n
“I’ve sent him a couple of photos of me and him with our arms around each other, you know,” Flutey says with a smile.<\/p>\n
“Hey, I’m sure he’ll send me one at some point. He’s got a big job leading the ship!”<\/p>\n
At the last Rugby World Cup – France 2023 – the pair were part of Japan’s coaching staff.<\/p>\n
Now they are in opposite camps. Flutey, the former England international and British and Irish Lion, is backs and skills coach for the Black Ferns.<\/p>\n
Mitchell, picked in various All Black squads during his playing days, leads the Red Roses.<\/p>\n
Flutey was appointed in April as the final part of New Zealand’s coaching set-up for this Women’s Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n
One of the first things that struck him was the group mentality of the six-time champions.<\/p>\n
“Allan Bunting, head coach, has done a fantastic job by creating an environment based on connection and service,” he says.<\/p>\n
“You know, coming from the outside, from a Super Rugby men’s environment [Flutey’s last post was with the Highlanders] and just seeing how that looks and how that feels is pretty amazing.<\/p>\n
“The connections within this team, management to management, management to player, and player to player, are pretty special.<\/p>\n
“It’s really genuine.”<\/p>\n
There are no formal bonding exercises or team-building sessions, just a lot of time in each others’ company, talking, singing and supporting each other on another well-timed tilt towards the world title.<\/p>\n
“I remember as a player, as soon as we had our meeting at the hotel before getting on the bus you could hear a pin drop,” says Flutey.<\/p>\n
“No-one would speak.<\/p>\n
“Everyone was headphones on, no talking, eyes straight ahead. That was what ‘on’ looked like.<\/p>\n
“But with this team they have music playing, they connect with each other, talk with each other throughout that whole process – into the changing rooms as well.<\/p>\n
“I love it. I love being pretty relaxed on game day, clearing the mind a bit about the pressure that’s about to come and enjoying the moment – so that’s pretty cool.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Riki Flutey is still waiting for John Mitchell’s message back. “I’ve sent him a couple of photos of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-112446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}