John Mitchell quits Sale - who'd have believed it?

Surprise, surprise the ludicrous roller coaster ride that is Sale rugby club continues apace with the news that Mitchell is leaving to return to SA with immediate effect bacause of " personal reasons" which the club fully understand. Would these personal reasons include that Sale's squad has so many weak links that it will be a miracle if they stay up?

I fully expect that Ritchie Gray's agent is no longer on his Christmas card list!

Pathetic shambles of a club. Diamond is the problem as he has signed those players and controls every single aspect of that club. I found it funny that Mitchell would even bother going to Sale, he's a former All Black coach so why would he want to be told what to do by someone who's achieved Frak all in comparison?

The North West needs representation in the premiership but this mob aren't capable of doing what is required. You want Sale to be successful? Start by getting rid of Diamond, get rid of 90% of the playing staff, sign some proper
Rugby players ie 1 or 2 marquee intl's and build a team from scratch. Not some dross castoffs from other clubs. 2/3 years ago they were spending at the salary cap and they had a squad which would struggle to win the Sydney
Club comp. They're a shambles. Cueto has a clause that says he must remain the club's highest paid player so everytime they make a 'big' signing his wage goes up. He's mediocre at best, what a joke!

This is a huge shame. But until the smoke clears we won't know if this was the doing of Steve Diamond or Mitchell, or a combination thereof.

I do agree it is important for Sale to stay in the Premiership because they are one of the few clubs in the North. Although they never capitalised on being 'Manchester's club', they appeared to have been moving in the right direction from the business point of view. Now all is a mess.

In order to stay up, they will need a high power coach right away. Not sure who is available, but the phones better start ringing.

Mitchell's involvement was just a further abberation after the appointment of Redpath. If they were Diamonds appointees he needs to remove himself pronto and make room for a rated head coach/DoR. Not sure who would want to touch the club in any capacity if he's still in charge.

aitchw,
Great point. I would guess any decent coach would want Diamond out of the way or removed completely as a condition for taking the appointment. Who do you think is available at the moment?

Genuinely don't know who's out there that would fit the bill. Seemingly Eddie O'Sullivan was interviwed earlier this year so he must have been interested then but now, who knows?

Kennedy's loyalty to Diamond goes way too deep. This one problem will spell the end of Sale as a premiership team.

aitchw,
I would think its a big plus on a c.v. to have ridden in and saved Sale from relegation. You're right, Eddie O'Sullivan is available. But there is no doubt he would want to run the whole operation and not have Diamond, or anyone, looking over his shoulder. To your point, that might be the biggest problem.

Not sure if I am right but Diamond is the club CEO. Maybe part of the problem is that he can't let go of the rugby side because of his own poor recruitment. If Kennedy won't or can't remove him then the only hope is a DoR/head coach strong enough and capable enough to keep him at arms length. It doesn't look good for the club as it stands.

Martin Johnson would be a good guy to get in, Danny cips would probably pap himself but they could do a lot worse

Can someone please put me at ease and tell me that Richie Gray has a relegation release clause??

RDW_Scotland wrote:Can someone please put me at ease and tell me that Richie Gray has a relegation release clause??

No idea, failing that we'll just have to hope he's a very good agent. The sooner he gets out of Salford the better

there weren't many people who thought it a good idea in the first place - wish he'd gone to to Quins or Gloucester or somewhere like that.

How has he even been performing for Sale?

No idea, don't have sky or espn so don't see the Aviva games. Maybe with big Jim heading off to France he could take his place at Gloucester... (wishful thinking)

To be honest he's been pretty anonymous for most of Sale's matches, not playing that badly but he's just stuck having to try to tackle/ruck/run backwards as the forwards retreat all game every game.

Grey's not been great, but then again none of the Sale boys have....and if you look at the squad, they should be doing so much more. The old addage of individuals not making a team or something deeper?

My mate needs to quit smoking.

I'll put her in touch with Mitchell. That man is amazing at quitting things.

John Mitchell has presumably turned up and decided that there is nothing that he can do so has scarpered!
Or maybe he sees a sinking ship and rumped off to try and preserve reputation.

The latter I suspect. He's not a great one for sticking to the task in hand.

A couple of interesting candidates from north of the border. Sean Lineen? A highly pragmatic and experience coach. He's also worked with Richie Gray and Richie Vernon before. Someone like Craig Chalmers could also do a job for them. He's keen to get pro experience and whilst he's not ready for a head coach role I don't think, he's a tough cookie and could work under someone (maybe even Diamond).

I presume if Sale go down Richie Gray's salary will mean they need to offload him. Assuming coming back to Scotland isn't an option, I'd like him to move to a Prem top four side, or to Toulouse, Biarritz, Toulon or Clermont. He's good enough.

Daniel Braid will be turning up at Sale very shortly.

Auckland Blues wouldnt renew his contract.