Waratahs coach Rob Penney urges Australia to join trans-Tasman competition if Super Rugby is canned next season
Waratahs coach Rob Penney is convinced the best way to develop Australia’s next crop of stars is by throwing them into the deep end against Kiwi teams, and Australia should push for a trans-Tasman comp next year.
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Either a glutton for punishment or a man on a mission, Rob Penney has urged Australia to join forces with New Zealand in a streamlined trans-Tasman competition if Super Rugby folds next year.
While no decision has been made yet on what next season’s competition will look like, Penney is adamant the best way to improve Australia’s best talent is by throwing them into the deep end against the Kiwis teams rather than develop a domestic tournament.
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“I would love it to be a trans-Tasman competition,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“New Zealand Super Rugby has been the benchmark, and that’s not a derogatory comment on anything that’s happened anywhere else, but they’re consistently at the top.
“There will be testing times of course but for our boys to consistently play against them, that’s only going to be good for their development.”
NSW were 0-3 against New Zealand sides this year but Penney said he’ll stick with the Waratahs no matter which competition they play because he’s convinced they have the nucleus of a great side.
Packed with emerging stars who represented Australia at Under 20s level, the Waratahs struggled badly in the first part of the season but the Kiwi coach has seen enough to know they will only get better with time because the problems are all fixable.
“I’m keen to see this project through because I believe in these boys,” he said.
“It’s still a young crop but there’s a lot of talent there that can have a long-term impact on Australian and Waratahs rugby.”
After spending most of the lockdown period at his home in New Zealand, Penney returned to Sydney last month, spending two weeks in quarantine before hitting the training paddock with his players a week ago.
Everyone kept in regular contact during the shutdown, closely analysing where things went wrong in the first seven rounds, when they managed just one win, and Penney said there’s a commitment to make things right.
“We had a pretty robust review and there’s some big things we need to fix that will have a major impact on both our attack and defence and if we get those right hopefully we can put the performances together that everyone wants,” Penney said.
“It’s not baby in the bathwater stuff. It wasn’t all bad, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.”
The best news for the Waratahs is the results from the first sevens weeks of the full Super Rugby will not count in the new five-team competition, starting July 3, so the focus has all been on preparing for the restart.
“If you look at the raw stats, we gave away far too many penalties in defensive breakdowns,” he said.
“Our tactical accuracy was good but we had too many big misses, meaning guys missing tackles that ended up having critical outcomes in terms of our position or leaking a try.
“On the defensive side of the ball, there’s a couple of obvious things that we can fix.
“On the attack side of the ball we were just really poor at maintaining possession, we turned over the ball very meekly.
“It wasn't through our breakdown work. It was more due to handling errors or people trying to offload when it wasn’t on or kicking away possession when we had opportunities to run or run when we had opportunities to kick.”
Originally published as Waratahs coach Rob Penney urges Australia to join trans-Tasman competition if Super Rugby is canned next season
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