Hamish Mitchell - Anybody Know Him?

[raziel_eire]

Saracens clinch Mitchell signing

Saracens have completed the signing of prop forward Hamish Mitchell.

The 6ft 4in forward has been on trial with the Premiership club and has signed for the remainder of the season.
"It's a very strong league and the opportunity to play against some of the best props in Europe is one which I am looking forward to," he said.

The 24-year-old Irish-qualified player has been with Taranki in New Zealand for the last two years and played against the Lions this summer.

He has already featured for Saracens in an A-game against Northampton this week.
"Hamish performed well in the A-game and during his trial so he's been rewarded with a contract," said head coach Mike Ford.

"We're delighted that he's joined us and are looking forward to seeing him play."

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Now seeing as we (Ireland) are so short on any real options for our fast declining front row; whats this guy mitchell like?
Could he make the grade, is he better then some of our current options?
Will his playing in England count against him in EOS's eyes (think Casey/Jennings)?
Does anybody know anything about him?

 

[esoj]

hes from taranaki so he will be quite good. they always have awesome forwards down that way. they seem to always have good props and hookers in their team. he will not let saracens down at all and is a good buy.

 

[An Tarbh]

Well there's always a glimmer of hope as Eddie still picks Murphy and O'Connor, albeit it's taken him a while to get them into the setup, but we're by far the weakest of the established nations when it comes to front row options so Eddie doesn't have much choice.

 

[raziel_eire]

But does he have international ability/potential? The report says he's Irish-qualified... I've no doubt he is or could become a good club player; but its that next step up I'm thinking about what with the World Cup coming round ...

 

[esoj]

I really don't know as I haven't see much of Irsh rugby or games up in europe. I think he can though the npc and super 12 are very hard competitions and being from taranaki hes proabbly been working on a farm for most of his life so fitness won't be a problem for him. I guess when he plays some clubs games might get some idea of what he can do but ultimately there is only one way to find out if a player is good enough at test level and that is to try them in a test.

 

[An Tarbh]

John Hayes is a farmer as well, so that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

 

[An Tarbh]

Originally posted by esoj@Nov 28 2005, 09:52 PM
I really don't know as I haven't see much of Irsh rugby or games up in europe. I think he can though the npc and super 12 are very hard competitions and being from taranaki hes proabbly been working on a farm for most of his life so fitness won't be a problem for him. I guess when he plays some clubs games might get some idea of what he can do but ultimately there is only one way to find out if a player is good enough at test level and that is to try them in a test.

Only thing is our Eddie doesn't exactly have the best reputation for experimentation, if only he'd experimented a bit more when he was in college, oh well.