Colman’s Call: Dave Rennie’s first call should be to Robbie Deans
Australia’s new rugby coach has had great success in New Zealand - but that won’t mean a thing on this side of the ditch, says MIKE COLMAN.
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So the Wallabies have appointed a Kiwi coach with no international experience and less than a month to prepare for a Test series against Ireland.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, quite a lot actually – not that it seems to be worrying Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle.
“Dave Rennie was the clear standout candidate for the job, and we’re thrilled to have secured his services,” Castle said.
“Dave’s coaching philosophy focuses equally on football and team culture, the key pillars to building sustainable success in any team.
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“He has a proven track record in the northern and southern hemisphere.”
Now where have we heard those words before?
Oh yeah, it’s almost exactly what Castle’s predecessor Bill Pulver said when Michael Cheika stepped into the role in 2014.
And pretty much identical to ARU boss John O’Neill’s comments when New Zealander Robbie Deans was appointed in 2007.
It’s hardly surprising really: the three of them have a lot in common. Like Rennie – who won two Super Rugby titles with the Chiefs - Deans and Cheika both experienced great success at provincial level.
Deans won a record five Super titles with the Crusaders and Cheika, in coaching Leinster to the 2009 Heineken Cup and the Waratahs to the 2014 Super Rugby title, became the first coach to win the major competition in both hemispheres.
Yet for all that, neither Deans nor Cheika could make a success of coaching the Wallabies.
The high point of both their tenures was Cheika taking the side to the final of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, an achievement that earned him the International Rugby Board Coach of the Year Award – but was all downhill from there.
Within three years the Wallabies and their supporters were suffering through the worst season in the team’s history and this year’s Rugby World Cup was an exercise in exasperation before Eddie Jones and his England side mercifully ended the misery.
All of which should make David Rennie very wary of what he is getting himself into.
Obviously success at different levels and in other countries doesn’t guarantee success in the Test arena - or maybe it isn’t the coaching but rather the entire structure of Australian rugby that needs an overhaul.
Perhaps Raelene Castle should be looking more at the support system that will be providing Rennie with players and behind-the-scenes assistance than the coach’s past glories.
Either way, the first call Rennie makes over the next few days should be to fellow Kiwi Deans, now coaching in Japan.
It is significant that Castle should make special mention of the “culture” that Rennie instilled at the Chiefs.
Because, if there was one thing that Deans proved during his frustrating time with the Wallabies it was that the culture within New Zealand rugby teams and those in Australia is very different, and what works on the other side of the ditch doesn’t necessarily work here.
Deans spent five years trying to get the likes of Quade Cooper, James O’Connor and Kurtley Beale – the so-called “Three Amigos” – to live, breath and bleed rugby with the same passion as Crusaders Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Brad Thorn, and never came close.
They just didn’t get it.
To Kiwis rugby is a way of life. To Australians, it seems, it is a way of making a good living.
That is something Rennie is going to have to get his head around – and try to change – very quickly because after the last few years of disappointment, Wallaby fans aren’t in a mood to be overly patient – or forgiving.
Originally published as Colman’s Call: Dave Rennie’s first call should be to Robbie Deans