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May the Force behave better: Mitchell
December 3, 2008 - 6:50PM
Coach John Mitchell says the Western Force are determined to improve player behaviour at the controversy-plagued Super 14 club following a turbulent 2008 season.
Mitchell admitted mistakes had been made in the club's handling of some of its off-field troubles and the belief of players had been affected.
After an excellent start to their 2008 campaign which included several early away wins, the Force slumped in the second half of the season and missed the finals.
Following on from the "Quokkagate" controversy at the end of the previous year, the Force then had to deal with the altercation between backs Matt Henjak and Haig Sare.
Henjak was ultimately sacked and after the season ended reports from Perth suggested some of the Force players were revolting against Mitchell and his coaching methods.
The Force's culture has come under scrutiny after a number of off-field incidents, but Mitchell said a post-season review had been excellent and "very open and honest".
"We are communicating far more effectively as an organisation, we've clearly identified that we want to change our behaviour and look at the right behaviour I guess all good teams and successful teams achieve," Mitchell said.
"That comes through the leadership from within.
"I think there's probably a couple of mistakes we made in the first three years, not intentionally, but we had to be pretty urgent in a lot of decisions that we had to make.
"At times we probably could have been a little more thoughtful in some of our decisions but urgency sometimes forces those decisions and the culture, the boys I'm sensing are really looking to drive it from within."
Mitchell said on Wednesday at a SANZAR Technical conference in Sydney he hadn't been disappointed "at all" by suggestions of a player revolution, which senior Force stars had publicly denied.
"Not at all, at the end of day it created honesty and openness and ultimately when people communicate they tell you what exactly they think, there's no grey ideas," Mitchell told AAP.
"You can look to move on. As a head coach, at the end of the day I'm there to help and to produce an environment that is conducive to growth.
"People know me well, I will continue to challenge individuals and I will challenge the group and the organisation to become the best it can possible be.
"In the four years I've been living in Australia and in the west since this club has been conceived, I guess there's always people knocking the belief box on what you can become and I can guess last year a little bit of our belief box got rattled a little by speculation and by some of our own actions.
"We had to endure quite a lot last year in terms of off the field, I sense a real hunger and a real want to move forward as a group.
While speculation continues over whether brilliant back Matt Giteau will remain with the Force, Mitchell said he expected the player to honour his contract and his teammates were looking forward to the Test star's return.
Mitchell revealed the Force were still looking to import another tighthead prop and had searched both hemispheres looking for a suitable player.
© 2008 AAP
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