He’s 28 now and you’d forgive him for believing that, at last, he’s arrived at the foot of Mount Olympus. His club, the one he’s played for since he was 18, Northampton Saints, may be in the foothills of a journey to somewhere special. As for England, who have won their past 11 Test matches, he’s the only scrum half in the national team’s 25-man elite player squad. Alex Mitchell, you could say, has nailed it.
Meeting him in a warm corporate box on a cold afternoon at Franklin’s Gardens last week, I remind him of how the world has spread itself at his feet. “This season, you’ve played 11 games; seven for Northampton, four for England. Eleven victories. Not bad. You went with the British & Irish Lions to Australia and were the only player to feature in all ten Lions match-day squads.”
Chilled is his default temperature. Ten years of earning his living from the game have taught him lessons, but he has always been someone who takes these things in his stride. His plan had been to go to Loughborough University to study maths and economics, play rugby for the university and enjoy student life. Saints then put a £7,000 academy contract on the table and his agent said offers from a big club like Northampton don’t come round that often. Alex said he’d try it for a year.
There were times he wasn’t sure he’d ever get to play a first-team game for the club. Other times when he thought of taking up the deferred offer from Loughborough, but he stayed with rugby. If there was one thing that kept him going, it was a refusal to overthink things. He uses this phrase multiple times during the interview: “I try not to overthink things.”
Mitchell has established himself as England’s first-choice No9, collecting 27 caps
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So, on the cusp of what could be an outstanding season, he says he’s thinking only of Sunday’s first visit to Bordeaux Bègles. “You’ve got to enjoy the good moments, I accept that. Be grateful for them, but I’ve also been at Northampton when I think we lost 12 games on the bounce. When you’re winning, don’t think you’re better than everyone else. If you’re losing the whole time, you’re not as bad as you think you are. Right now, I don’t think we’re as good as we probably think we are.”
He says this in a matter-of-fact way — understatement his weapon of choice. His life, he says, might have been very different.
Born in Kent, he spent the first five years in Maidstone. At that point his mum, Rebecca, and dad, Glyn, separated. He and his older siblings, Jordan and James, moved with their mum to Grappenhall in Cheshire. “I was lucky. My mum bought a house just across the river [Mersey], so we’d be in the catchment area for Lymm High School. Otherwise I would have gone to a different school, one that didn’t play rugby. The alternatives to Lymm weren’t as good, so our mum managed to get a bit more cash together and buy on the side of the river that got us into the best school. Looking back, that decision made a huge difference to my life.”
I ask if he was affected by the end of his parents’ marriage? “No, no. Not at all. I think I was far too young anyway. When I was nine or ten, getting really into rugby, Dad used to come up every weekend and take me to rugby. He’d watch me play and stuff, and then drive back home.”
Mitchell has won all 11 matches he has played for club and country this season
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
That was an almost four-hour drive each way. “I took it for granted at the time. There’s memories of when I’m playing, looking up to Mum or Dad on the touchline. That gives you a boost. I remember it giving me a sense of wanting to try harder, but at the time you don’t appreciate why. And then you get older, more mature, and you feel a bit more gratitude. You learn to appreciate — ‘Oh, they’ve come to watch. That’s why you’re buzzing. Your parents are here.’ ”
Now retired, Glyn still goes to every game. He and Rebecca have new partners and Alex has a stepmum and stepdad. They also come to games. “It’s all very civil — very, very nice,” he says.
Not that it was ever much different. They were three boys, each blessed with a passion for sport. Jordan, the eldest, was a decent scrum half and an excellent cricketer. He’s now a PE teacher. James, the middle boy, was an outstanding scrum half, who blazed the trail in the Mitchell household; playing seven times for England Under-18 and ten times for England Under-20, including the 2015 World Cup final against New Zealand, a game England lost 21-16.
Some memories have no dim switch. For Alex, there is the day James, 18 at the time, came home from training at Sale Sharks, where they were both in the academy. “I’d just got selected for the England 16s and was at an age where you’re thinking you could be quite good at this. So James walks in and says, ‘I got a contract’. I don’t remember the money but it was probably like three grand a year. And he said, ‘Have I made it?’
Mitchell was able to take inspiration from the achievements of his brother James, who represented England Under-20
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“I just thought, ‘It’s a cool, cool thing, a professional contract with a professional club, and that kind of spurred me on. I was going to work hard to get myself in the same position.”
He could see that James was better than him, but he was two years older. Though they were both enthusiastic trainers, James was more driven, more methodical in his approach. Relative to his brother, Alex was almost laid-back. He applied to Loughborough because he knew that even if you played for England’s under-16s, 18s and 20s, the likelihood was that you wouldn’t graduate to the senior team. Even his dreams were chilled.
Something a teacher and rugby coach at Lymm High School said startled him. “There was one game for the school. I think I was 17. Afterwards Len Davies, the coach, came and said, ‘That was the best scrum-half performance I’ve ever seen on this pitch.’ Len was a really good coach and that got me thinking. Andy Davies, who was then a professional, had played for the school, as did my brother James, and now I’m thinking, ‘I might be better than them.’ ”
Progress in the early years was slow, which was mostly down to an ACL injury when he was 18, and then an equally serious meniscus injury three years later. Each cost him nine months. He did the rehab and the tide did turn, first at Northampton and eventually with England. He made his England debut off the bench against Tonga in the autumn of 2021 and waited until the 2023 Six Nations for his second cap.
Having played off the bench in four of England’s five games in that year’s Six Nations, he could be forgiven for thinking he would be one of three scrum halves in England’s squad for the 2023 World Cup. “We were in camp, about a week or so before the World Cup warm-up games. There were four nines in the squad but they told us that they were only going to take three [to France].
Mitchell wins his first England cap against Tonga in 2021 alongside Mark Atkinson — another debutant in that match
DAN MULLAN/GETTY IMAGES
“Steve [Borthwick] took [me] for a walk round the pitch. It was a really positive talk. He said I had done really well and was up there with the other scrum halves, but for the World Cup he needed experience and that meant he was going with Ben [Youngs] and Danny [Care]. As Jack [van Poortvliet] was starting most games at the time, that meant I was out. Obviously I felt very frustrated.”
Did you ask Steve why?
“I think so, yeah. I can’t actually remember fully what I said. I was more just taken aback a bit. And he said, ‘If you want to chat about anything, give me a call.’ He was very open about it, which I love from Steve. He told me what I needed to work on, what I was good at, and why he’d gone with the other nines. I appreciated the honesty.”
Was it your game management?
“Yeah, I think a bit game management, and I think experience as well. At a World Cup, experience is massive.”
Mitchell admits there were times he wasn’t sure whether he would play a first-team game for Saints
DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES
Not much about the sporting life is written in stone. In England’s warm-up match against Wales at Twickenham, Van Poortvliet suffered a bad ankle injury and one man’s cruel injury became another’s opportunity. “I was determined to make the best of the summer and had taken three holidays, then I was back in the squad,” Mitchell says. At the World Cup, he established himself as England’s No1 scrum half. That’s how it’s been ever since.
Last summer, he went with the Lions and loved every moment. Not getting off the bench in the second Test was disappointing and Andy Farrell, the head coach, spoke to him about it immediately after the game. “He just said, ‘Sorry you didn’t go on, Mitch. Obviously close game, and it’s tough to change the nine and ten.’ So, yeah, I appreciated that. And I really enjoyed our celebrations nonetheless.”
Is it true that rivals have now become friends?
“I think so. After we came back, I went to Bali with [Henry] Pollock, Joe McCarthy and Jamie Osborne. After that, I joined up with another group of Lions going to Las Vegas. Jac Morgan, who I got on really well with in Australia, drove up from Wales to Heathrow and we travelled out together. There, we linked up with Tadhg Furlong, Bundee Aki, Dan Sheehan and Conor Murray. I was in Dubai for a short break recently and met up with Blair Kinghorn.”
Jac Morgan comes across as hugely likeable?
Mitchell’s successful 2025 included featuring in every match-day squad on the Lions tour to Australia
JAMES WORSFOLD/GETTY IMAGES
“He’s so good. He’s the nicest bloke going, such a genuine fellow. And, yeah, everyone loved him. No sides to Jac, certainly not a bad side. Even when you know he was frustrated by not starting, he just got on with it in the right way. Yeah, a properly genuine bloke. And you know within the group, after the second Test, we played the clip of Jac making that clean-out over and over again.
“That was probably the most important moment in terms of winning the Test series.”
That was then. Exhilarating at the time, then gone and now just a memory. Now Mitchell is with his beloved Saints in Bordeaux, preparing for a Champions Cup game against the defending champions. Bordeaux Bègles are a talented team with a formidable pack. Saints know they too have quite a squad, with a depth that few teams in this competition come near.
Mitchell and Saints were beaten by Bordeaux in last season’s Champions Cup final and are out for revenge on Sunday
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Many of their players will be offered more money to go elsewhere. Mitchell is now one of the senior men and I wonder if he would feel comfortable telling younger players they should stay for the chance to do something amazing on the pitch rather than go for a better wage? “Oh, I think so. You probably have different words from different people but if you’re in a good side, and you’re winning, you’re going to accept a bit less to stay in that group.
“I think our boys appreciate that. This year a lot of our boys have already done that [accepted less money than available elsewhere]. People enjoy their time here. Great coaching staff, well-run club, team playing good rugby, winning a lot of games, you’re definitely going to take a bit less to be involved in that.”
There are many who believe Northampton can be the next English club to win the Champions Cup. I mention this and he reminds of how unbothered he is by others’ expectations. No need for a deep dive to find the chilled Alex, the one who isn’t going to overthink this. “We go in as big underdogs against Bordeaux but we don’t really mind,” he says.
“We know how we can perform and put our stuff on the pitch. We’re in a good place. If people think we won’t get out of the group stage, so be it. If they think we can win the whole thing, so be it. We’re doing what we’re doing, and we’re going hard at it.”
If this is the soul of Saints, they’ve got the perfect man in the No9 shirt.