Only time will tell whether the Golden Lions have pulled off a major coup or made another giant mistake, but the appointment of John Mitchell to coach the side in the Currie Cup is nothing short of bizarre.

By Jacques van der Westhuyzen

Then again, many of the decisions made at Lions HQ are strange. Very strange indeed.

They sacked Eugene Eloff after last year’s Super 14 campaign, replaced him with Hans Coetzee – a man who’d done well at schoolboy level and in junior rugby, but knew little of the professional game – then they got Jake White on board to serve as a consultant but at the start of this year decided he was no longer needed.

Dick Muir was named as the union’s new director of rugby and head coach and while he arrived at the Lions with a good pedigree, the Lions flopped in the Super 14, losing all their matches. On top of that, Muir was appointed with the big bosses knowing full well he’d be involved with the Boks for a big chunk of the Currie Cup because of his involvement with the national team.

Now Mitchell, still employed until May 2011 by the Western Force, comes in to coach the Lions in the Currie Cup. Who makes these decisions?

What the Lions need is continuity, not a new voice, with new ideas and new philosophies every few months.

Mitchell will arrive this week to start preparing the team for the Currie Cup. He’ll bring his own methods and certainly a different style to coaching to what the players have been used to under Muir, before packing up and returning to Perth in November. Then Muir will be back to start building for the new-look Super 15. How confused are the players going to be – as they’re the ones who are expected to listen to the coach and execute his plans on the field?

There is no doubt Mitchell, 46, is a good coach. He won 86 percent of his matches as All Blacks coach between 2001 and 2003 and has also turned the Force into a fairly decent outfit.

But he’s known to be quite a complex character, a man having different personalities, according to a 2009 article in the Sunday Star Times. They described him as being a smiling, charming, successful, smart family man one minute and a devious, scheming, ruthless character the next.

He’s an enigma, there’s no doubt about that and it’ll be interesting to see how he fits in with the Lions, a young team trying to find their feet. Do they really need Mitchell, do they really need more change? Their performance in the Currie Cup will answer these questions. Somehow I fear there’s more heartache on the way for the fans