By WYNNE GRAY
John Mitchell will coach the Chiefs in next season's Super 12.
The former Waikato and All Black skipper, who moved on to become assistant England coach, was approved after a special interview panel met the best seven contenders.
Waikato rugby has been in a ferment about the possibilities since the weekend and the Herald understands Mitchell won a close decision ahead of the favoured John Boe.
Pressed for a comment yesterday, neither candidate was able to divulge any facts about the outcome.
Mitchell's appointment has not been ratified yet by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union because of contractual details, while an assistant coach also needs to be named.
This year's assistant, Kevin Greene, is in line to retain his job though there will be competition from Ian Foster.
For more times than he will want to count, Boe has suffered Super 12 rejection. He was assistant to Brad Meurant with the Chiefs in 1997, but since then his search for work with the Chiefs, Blues and Waratahs has come up short.
Curiously, with that record, Boe got to the second stage of interviews to make the new All Black panel late last year. He took Waikato to the semifinals and final of the NPC, coached New Zealand to win the international under-19 competition and led Samoa to the PacRim triumph this year.
Mitchell began coaching on the English club scene before graduating as assistant to Clive Woodward, until he returned to Hamilton this year.
When three-season coach Ross Cooper quit, there were initial signals that Boe and Mitchell might form an alliance in another twist to the coaching troubles which have bedevilled the franchise. The pair were always seen as the strongest candidates to be head coach and there were initial ideas floated about using both of them.
However, the glow of that theory dimmed as the candidates and interview panel sifted through the practical arrangements of moving the Chiefs' franchise forward.
Both Boe and Mitchell are ambitious and passionate about their rugby coaching careers. However, given his run of Super 12 setbacks, Boe may well have accepted a secondary role but it seemed Mitchell, a younger man on the rise, wanted to be the head coach or wait for a future opportunity.
The Chiefs were sixth-equal in the first year of Super 12, then 11th, seventh, sixth and 10th this year.
A panel of NZRFU representative Greg Peters, Chiefs chief executive Gary Dawson, two independents, including former All Black Stan Meads and non-voting representatives from the Sheffield Consulting Group, interviewed the final candidates last Friday.
They were Mitchell, Boe, Greene, Foster, Kiwi Searancke, Mac McCallion and Andrew Talaimanu.
The panel's preferred choice was Mitchell, an evaluation which has to be officially sanctioned by the NZRFU.
Meanwhile, after a second NZRFU review of Gordon Hunter's work with the Blues, it is expected there will be an announcement later this week about his position.
Rugby: Mitchell gets nod for Chiefs job
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