Sports Profile: N.A. 'Brushy' Mitchell
Neville 'Brushy' Mitchell, All Blacks captain and Southland and Otago representative, played 85 first-class games in his career, 34 of them for the All Blacks.
One of Southland's most gifted backs, the owner of a punishing fend, he emerged in the mid-1930s to be selected for the All Blacks tour to Britain and Ireland in 1935-36, and was regarded as one of the successes of the tour.
He played at home in one Test against Australia in 1936 but was injured, a problem that continued through 1937.
‘Brushy’ Mitchell kicks ahead during the All Blacks 1935 Test with Ireland.
Mitchell, from the newly-formed Old Boys club in Invercargill, played 24 games for Southland between his debut in 1932 and 1937. He told the writer in an interview in Invercargill in 1979 when back in the city for the 50th Jubilee of the Old Boys club that 1905-06 All Blacks vice-captain Billy Stead had a big influence on his early development, especially when providing the Southland Boys' High School 1st XV with some coaching.
"Billy said that everywhere I went I should take a football in my hands and toss it around or pass it to my mates. We used to walk around on Sunday afternoons doing that."[1]
Mitchell played in the 1934 All Blacks trials and for the South Island. So well did he play that northern identity Norman McKenzie predicted Mitchell would be selected for the 1935-36 tour of Britain and Ireland.
McKenzie said, "Mitchell is such a big fellow, difficult to upset, fairly pacy, young and just the one to improve on such a tour."
Duly selected, Mitchell played 22 games on the tour, including the four Test matches.
Double All Black Eric Tindill produced a book after the tour and said of Mitchell, "Right from the first game he played really outstanding football on the wing. He was unimpressive, I thought, as a centre, but as a wing he was a different player altogether, showing speed, clever side-stepping and determination in going for the line. Many a time I have seen him emerge triumphant with the ball when as many as six or seven of the opposition have confronted him. He possessed a deceptive swerve, dummied well and had a good body wiggle."[2]
The benefits he received from the tour were laid out for Southland fans when Australia came to town and left beaten 14-6 by the home side.
Long-time Southland Times sports writer Albie Keast said, "Mitchell is a match-winner for Southland, and there is solace in the fact that although he has reached the top of the rugby tree in New Zealand, he is yet a young man and should be available for Southland and New Zealand for several years to come."[3]
Fate wasn't to agree with Keast.
Southland appointed a new coach in 1937, the former New Zealand Universities and Southland wing Charlie 'Ness' Diack, father of future All Black 'Tuppy' Diack. Diack Snr was a firm adherent to the value of team training and was frustrated that Mitchell was unable to train with the side.
When it came time for Southland to challenge for the Ranfurly Shield against Otago in 1937, Mitchell still hadn't been able to join the side, although his fellow selectors forced Diack to include him in the team.
Southland was on attack early in the game, and Mitchell had the chance to take a gap in a potentially try-scoring position, but when he applied pressure to his leg to increase his speed, he broke down.
He tried to play on, but only when Diack left the grandstand and removed him from the field did Southland get its game going.
Diack said in an interview with the writer when attending a jubilee of Southland Boys' High School in 1980 that everyone raved about what a great replacement Arthur Wesney proved to be when replacing Mitchell.
"But Mitchell was the replacement, Wesney should have started the game. Mitchell, because of his injury, hadn't practiced with the side, Wesney had all season."[4]
Southland won the game 12-7 after Wesney scored a try, converted it and added a penalty to the dropped goal landed by wing Alex Sutherland.
TP McLean later wrote that when the Southland team returned home by train with the Shield, Mitchell had been booed when lifting the Shield aloft in Invercargill. Mitchell handed the trophy to another player, backed through the players, got off on the other side, walked down the end of the train unnoticed, and out of Southland rugby.[5]
He played for Otago the following season.
However, after the Shield game, Mitchell was called up by the All Blacks selectors to play in the third Test against the touring Springboks in the 1937 series, only to break down again and be one of two passengers in a backline that conceded what still ranks as one of New Zealand's most humiliating defeats, beaten 17-3 by South Africa who not only scrummed the All Blacks off Eden Park, but ran them off as well.
Mitchell in action during the third Test against South Africa 1937
Diack said he never forgave New Zealand selector Jim Burrows for failing to contact him to find out the extent of Mitchell's injury.
The following year, Mitchell had recovered and was named captain of the New Zealand team that toured Australia. After the humiliation at the hands of South Africa, the side played outstandingly to win the Bledisloe Cup, allowing Mitchell to retire from international rugby with his reputation restored.
Mitchell was named one of Australia's five players of the year by The Referee newspaper. Fellow All Blacks Jack Sullivan and Charlie Saxton were also on the list.
Writer V.C. Davis said, "Mitchell portrayed everything that is good in outside-centre play. He instinctively knew the strength or weakness of each set of circumstances as they unfolded.
"The brain was always functioning brightly to direct things in Mitchell's play and it is fitting to pay this tribute to him – that all his efforts were devoid of undue individualism and were consistently aimed at co-operating with his men.
"That quality, so much to be desired in a captain, was of great value to the wearers of the silver fern in their programme of matches in Australia.
"One valuable means of penetrating that was brought home to us by Mitchell was 'fending'. The value of this fend was shown in the way Mitchell treated a courageous if not experienced tackler in V. Miller during the N.S.W. match.
"Mitchell's own defence has been questioned in some quarters and, indeed, before coming to a conclusion about it, one would like to see more of it. Suffice it to say that Mitchell's defence in the cases where this writer saw it functioning was no worse that international standard.
"In other respects, such as handling, passing, following up to anticipate a valuable pass, and in quick thinking, Mitchell was the really first-class footballer."[6]
Later, after the Second World War, he coached in South Canterbury, joined the ranks of those who had played in a winning Ranfurly Shield challenge, and coached a team to win when South Canterbury won the Shield in Wairarapa in 1950.
If Mitchell ever held a grudge for his treatment in Southland, it wasn't evident when he spoke to the Shield challenging Southlanders of 1976. Coach Bob Donnelly had contacted Mitchell, who was then living in Auckland, to see if he would be prepared to have a few words with the team before their challenge against Auckland.
To a man, the Southland players said his address had been inspirational, and while they didn't win the Shield, they drew 9-9, a closer result than many had expected.
Brushy Mitchell died in Auckland on May 21, 1981 aged 67.
[1] 'Brushy' Mitchell, Southland Times, 5 June 1979
[2] Eric Tindill, The Tour of the Third All Blacks 1935/36, C.J. Oliver and E.W. Tindill, Sporting Publications (Wright and Carman), Wellington 1936
[3] A.V. Keast, Southland Times, 17 September, 1936
[4] Charlie 'Ness' Diack, interview with Lynn McConnell, 1980
[5] TP McLean, Auckland v Southland, Auckland Rugby Union programme, 23 August 1980
[6] V.C. Davis, The Referee (Sydney), 6 October 1938