The old and the new... Michael Cheika and Dave Rennie. Photos / Getty Images
The old and the new... Michael Cheika and Dave Rennie. Photos / Getty Images
COMMENT:
As New Zealand Rugby contemplate how they let Dave Rennie get away – someone talking to him within the past two years may have helped, and certainly once Steve Hansen announced nearly a year ago that he wouldn't continue as All Blacks head coach after the recent World Cup– Wallabies fans may be wondering what they are going to get.
That bit's pretty easy too; an organised leader with attention to detail and one who won't lose it in front of the media under the lightest of grillings (as an insight into Michael Cheika's character goes, this one should have raised alarm bells).
Rennie will create an environment in which every Wallaby is confident about expressing himself and he will bring a gameplan that suits not only his players but also the prevailing trends of the game itself. He will bring consistency and belief. He will also instil a bit of niggle in his players.
Above all, he will make the Wallabies hard to beat and possibly a team few will honestly look forward to playing. Certainly, his track record with the Chiefs – he was in charge for six years, won consecutive Super Rugby titles and never finished outside of the playoffs – suggests that will be the case.
As an example, the Chiefs' work around the breakdown became notorious among rival Super Rugby coaches, many of whom couldn't understand why his players weren't penalised more, especially when they effectively neutralised their opponents by grabbing jerseys or taking them to the ground way beyond the breakdown itself.
Dave Rennie has just signed a four-year deal to coach the Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images
One of Rennie's big selection policies at the Chiefs under fellow master coach Wayne Smith was workrate and at the breakdown, his players often went above and beyond in order to give their backs a little time and space advantage. It often wasn't legal but, again, they often got away with it.
In an interview shortly after he arrived in Scotland to coach the Glasgow Warriors, Rennie said of his vision: "We want to be brutal. We play a lot of conditions here where it's cold and wet and you need to alter that style of game you play."
That pretty much encapsulates his methodology – focused, clinical, invested and occasionally ruthless.
It's no secret that Rennie enters his new role with Australian rugby in an extremely delicate state on and off the pitch.
Can Rennie get the organisation back on track? He will certainly help – potentially with results but also by engaging the various stakeholders.
There's no doubt Cheika had his good points – and, from the outside looking in, anyway, his unfailing loyalty to his players was to be applauded – but the shortness of his fuse was legendary and did more harm than good; whether storming into a referee's room to deliver a blast at halftime, to ripping into reporters for daring to question his state of mind after a loss ("You wouldn't know, you've never coached, you wouldn't know if there's a debate in my mind," he said last year after another Bledisloe Cup defeat, before suggesting the journalist go on medication). It was an approach which had a very limited shelf-life.
Michael Cheika's tenure as Wallabies head coach was characterised by heated exchanges with referees and the media. Photo / Getty Images
Rennie can fire his own darts but in a far more measured way. The immediate future of Australian rugby just got a bit brighter, and that's good news for New Zealand Rugby too.
The interest and tension among All Blacks supporters during the week of this year's Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park was off the charts following the Wallabies' win in Perth.
More of the same, please, from a nation who hasn't held the big cup since 2002, and it's difficult to think of a better coach than Rennie to deliver that.
