Rugby World Cup: Most people who knew the All Blacks coach John Mitchell during his time in England have a good story to tell.

In almost every case it is a variation on the same theme: a driven man of legendary commitment.

"My favourite was probably the time at Wasps when he was trying to get us to ruck by hitting an old scrum machine," reveals England's back-row forward Joe Worsley, shaking his head. "The padding was gone off the machine, it was just metal and the guys were going: 'We're not going to do this.'

"So Mitch says: 'I'll fucking show you.' He ran in and smashed this machine with both shoulders, then got up and said: 'Well, what about that?' We still refused to do it and he ended up seeing the physio because his back and shoulders were absolutely screwed." At Sale, where Mitchell both played and coached, the present director of rugby Jim Mallinder has a similar tale. "I remember him at training when he was still a player-coach," says Mallinder, among Mitchell's best friends in England. "He'd run himself into the ground and one day he simply collapsed because he'd overdone it."

And for conclusive proof New Zealand have an idiosyncratic leader just ask his old flatmate and Waikato team-mate Warren Gatland, the ex-Ireland coach now in charge of Wasps. "We flatted for a couple of years in Hamilton while I was at university and he was working as a quantity surveyor," recalls Gatland.

"I was away one weekend and on the Friday he put our washing-machine on. We had one of those old-style upright ones and when I got back on Monday morning I discovered it was still going. The water was black and the clothes were absolutely destroyed. I remember saying to him: 'How the hell did you let this washing machine go for 72 hours?' He was probably the worst flatmate I ever had."

Despite the rare All Black frailties exposed by Wales at the weekend, however, Mitchell's old sparring partners also agree on two more things: how much they rate the 39-year-old's technical forward coaching and how much he learned in England where he also spent three years as Clive Woodward's assistant from 1997-2000.

"I think he learnt a hell of a lot: about putting structures in place as much as anything," says Gatland. "It gave him a chance to learn and recognise there were a lot of good things happening outside New Zealand."

England's assistant coach Phil Larder, who worked closely alongside Mitchell during his time with England, agrees. "He's an open-minded guy and I'm sure he'll have taken on board a lot of things he's picked up from Clive, myself and others. We've developed a lot since then but I'm sure he will have done as well. He'll be a far better coach than he was then."

In retrospect, believes Mallinder, some tough times at Sale will also help him as the pressure rises ahead of Saturday's quarter-final against South Africa. It is not Mitchell's style, however, to be polite for the sake of it.

Or as Worsley puts it: "He didn't care what other people thought of his decisions. He's a very forthright man." ...