John Mitchell speaks to us about the Perth S14 adventure

It is a little under nine months since the ARU announced that Perth would host the new Super 14 franchise, and a shade over four since the administrators announced former All Black coach John Mitchell as the man to lead the new team into the tournament.

The arrival of Scott Fava from the Brumbies prompted a media announcement from Perth that '32 of the wished-for 33 players are now in place'; 32 players including some big names from this year's Super 12, like Reds' and Australia lock Nathan Sharpe - whom many have tipped to captain the new team - Waratahs' pivot Lachlan MacKay, and Fava from the Brumbies, to name but three.

Building the team is a task made all the more difficult with the ARU's ruling that only players eligible for Australia are allowed to play for an Australian province in the Super 14 tournament, which meant that Mitchell had to convince 33 players - many of whom had burgeoning careers at their franchises ahead of them, others already senior players - to take the plunge, join an unplayed team in a half-finished organisation and relocate to the other side of Australia.

"I commend every single player for coming to Perth and taking that risk," said Mitchell.

"They could have opted to stay with their teams and homes and stay in a comfort zone, others had opportunities overseas.

"The players who have come havebased their decisionon programme, lifestyle opportunities, the career and education opportunities outside of rugby, and the opportunity to be foundation members of a new and successful rugby team.

"Four months ago, we weren't even sure we would get the playing squad. Now we have a core of experience underpinned by a depth of local talent and youth, and we are in the process of building a local academy."

Mitchell refused to be drawn on who the final player would be, saying only that it is a winger.

"We have never forced anyone to join us, and to say any targets would be to put unfair pressure on those players in our thinking," he said.

"We have a few options, not only locally or even in union. There is a rugby league market here in the area, and there are also a few overseas-based players we could bring home."

Perth is not an area renowned for its rugby union tradition. The established sports teams in the area are the Fremantle Dockers and West Coast Eagles teams from AFL, and rugby league is strong in the area, although attempts to instil a local team into the NRL have thus far proved abortive.

The decision to expand to the West of Australia was a wing-spreading exercise for union in the country, but there is a stronger support and following of the game there than is readily apparent to outsiders. The 43,000-capacity Subiaco Oval stadium was sold out for the 2003 Rugby World Cup game between South Africa and England, with swarms of natives from both countries among them.

"There is a huge ex-pat rugby union community here, who now have a home team to support," explained Mitchell.

"A club game of union here attracts huge numbers of people."

The local reaction to the new franchise has far exceeded expectations, with three times as many memberships and season tickets sold as had been budgeted for, but it was the official release day of the brand and its sponsors, Emirates and FirePower, on July 5 that raised the most eyebrows.

At a corporate business lunch with some 850 guests, the first two of the sponsored playing jerseys officially for sale - one home and one away - were auctioned off to guests for A$ 30,000 each.

"We originally budgeted for 4,500 memberships, but we have already attracted 13,500," said Mitchell.

"That figure, and the attendance at the brand release launch show just how under-rated the support for rugby union in this area is."

The enormity of the task the West Australia Rugby Union undertook cannot be underestimated. It is one thing to found a new club in the comparatively early days of professionalism, quite another to build a stable, marketable brand, and assemble a squad capable of competing in what is arguably the world's premier sub-international level competition.

It is not a project that can easily be planned, and the potential is too difficult to gauge until a benchmark has been set, making initial target-setting and strategic management almost impossible.

"Certain parts are following a timeline from a rugby development and player recruitment aspect," said Mitchell.

"But even then there is a lot of grey area in the seasonal plan. We can't plan for unscheduled games.

"Conditioning starts in October, and there are the eleven weeks up to Christmas, but then in the first fortnight in January we already have our first trial match against a South African team, so the time constraints there are tight.

"And our Wallaby internationals will have to take their mandatory 4-week break from contact play or training after they return from the European tour so we will be missing them for a while as well."

The rugby hasn't started yet though, and there are hundreds of pieces of the branding business jigsaw to slot together first, a mammoth administrative task. An enjoyable job is rarely weary graft however, and Mitchell's enthusiasm for the project shone through as he spoke of the non-playing side of the organisation.

"I wouldn't say it is hard," he said.

"The difficulty comes in often having to put the cart before the horse because strategic management just can't happen.

"The approach is simply that it has to be done. There have never been any real targets or estimates. There are no real sequenced processes as yet, but as the project grows there is more and more HR and more and more admin, and the different departments are working closer and closer together.

"It is going to be no different on the field. The players will have to integrate in the same way and lose their bad habits with one another as the training and the season wear on.

"There are bound to be problems, there will be a lot of roller-coasters for us in the first year, but there is nothing better than working with people who have energy and enthusiasm, and that is what I have here."

A forgiveable amount of scepticism has surrounded the Super 14 expansion in some quarters - rugby union is the fourth-choice sport in Australia after all - but casting an eye at the depth of young talent that is likely to get regular first grade rugby rather than hanging around as understudy to senior players in the three more established regions shows that, provided Mitchell can gel them together, this is not a team that will begin its existence merely hoping for a couple of grafted wins.

Added to Mitchell's obvious enthusiasm, and the professionalism and minimum fuss with which the Perth administration are going about their project, and at the half-way stage between the announcement and February kick-off date, the omens are good for the Western Force.

<RivalsDM / FoxSports>