PERFECTION ISN’T really something top athletes ever actually want to catch, if you discuss it with them. Not anywhere other than a history-making final, anyway. As Northampton Saints and England nine Alex Mitchell puts it, “You always chase a perfect game but you’ll never actually get to it.
“There will always be some game where there’s a slight mistake, a slight improvement needed, a loss or whatever it is. I think if you have the perfect game, when you get there you’re not really in the right place. You always want to try and get better, to improve. As athletes we have always got that mindset.”
There’s a line of dialogue in the Dark Knight movie where the Joker explains excitedly, “I’m like a dog chasing cars – I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one.” Is it a bit like that?
“Exactly,” Mitchell replies. “Do you really want to get to that end goal? It’s just like,have another one in a year or two, whether that’s another performance you want or whatnot. The goalposts are always moving in that sense, to have something to chase after.”
