Rennie the only man who can transform Wallabies into winners

Raelene Castle insists only Dave Rennie can offer Australian fans the style of rugby they expect from the Wallabies.

New Wallabies coach Dave Rennie in Exeter last week with Glasgow

Rugby Australia chief executive Raelene Castle has defended the decision to hire New Zealander Dave Rennie as Wallabies coach, insisting only he could offer Australian fans the style of rugby they expect from the national team.

Rennie was announced as Michael Cheika’s replacement last Wednesday, signing a 3½-year deal that will see him lead the Wallabies to the 2023 World Cup in France. Castle said the importance of the decision to install a foreign coach had not been lost on the board.

“We did a lot of research about the type of coach that we needed and we believe he coaches a style of play that Australia’s rugby supporters want to see, a very attacking, positive style of rugby,” she told The Australian.

“He’s got proven success and he knows how to create a winning team. But it was also important that we found a coach who wanted to come and work in the environment and structure that we’ve put in place and Dave ticked all those boxes.”

Castle said it was disappointing no Australian coaches had entered the frame for the job and that RA’s director of rugby, Scott Johnson, had already identified that as a situation that required urgent attention.

Rugby Australia chief Raelene Castle. Picture: John Feder

“Rugby Australia has held its hand up and said we and the sport in this country should have done more to develop our young talented coaches,” she said.

“It takes time and that’s a really core focus for Scott in his new role, and one of his major challenges is ensuring we grow and develop that depth, that we create a network of coaches that are coaching here in Australia — and also internationally — who are capable of transitioning to being Wallabies coaches in the future.

“Ultimately, when Dave Rennie moves on from Wallabies coaching we want to have an Australian option ready to go.”

Castle said Rennie was cognisant of the pressure he would be under to succeed and that she was confident he had the experience and fortitude to handle it.

“There will be enormous curiosity to see what a Wallabies team under Dave Rennie looks like and until we see him in that first Test match against Ireland next year we won’t know,” she said.

“That’s the exciting bit. The reality is everybody wants to see the Wallabies winning — Dave’s role is to ensure he has the Wallabies in the best possible place to win as many games as possible.

“That’s his sole focus. It’s my job — and Scott’s job — to make sure everything else works behind the scenes.”

While she conceded the Wallabies’ sub-par performance at the 2019 World Cup was unacceptable, Castle said RA’s sights were now focused on the future.

“We believed the work had been done to have the Wallabies in a place where we expected them to do much better than that, so unquestionably that was disappointing.

“Or the flip side, we’ve now aligned high-performance agreements with all four of our Super Rugby (sides) for the first time in Rugby Australia’s history and that’s a very big step forward.”

Castle said the move would include “bumps in the road” but would lead to better performance.