Secret to success is forward thinking for Wallabies coach Dave Rennie

Rugby Australia's director of rugby Scott Johnson. Picture: AAP

The Six Nations tournament is only three weeks away, which means that the Pro14 tournament’s mini break is also coming up soon — and that gives Dave Rennie the chance to make a flying visit to Australia to catch a first-hand glimpse of what he will soon inherit as the new Wallabies coach.

The Glasgow Warriors coach will be here in a fortnight and will catch Australian rugby at precisely that moment when it looks its prettiest.

No one will have won or lost a match of any consequence.

Watch every match of the 2020 Vodafone Super Rugby Season LIVE & On-Demand on KAYO. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >

Indeed, as long as all teams come through their pre-season trials without losing any players to injury or heat exhaustion, it’s all on hold until the Brumbies play Queensland Reds in Canberra on January 31.

That will set the ball rolling in terms of the Australian involvement in Super Rugby.

So Rennie will get to observe all four teams when they are still in showroom condition, with nary a dented fender or grazed paintwork to be seen.

It will be a hurried visit, with Rennie having to scurry to meet all four franchises, talking to senior Wallabies and also making himself known to those members of his coaching and management staff that he may not have met yet.

But there is one member of his staff that he definitely has not been introduced to — his forwards coach.

Because he — or she — has not yet been appointed.

Rugby Australia’s director of rugby, Scott Johnson, confirmed to The Australian that a forwards coach was still to be added to the coaching staff.

And while it’s open to debate whether the attack coach (Scott Wisemantel) or the defence coach (Matty Taylor) has the more critical role to play in the Wallabies set-up, the reality is that, unless the forwards coach does his job, Taylor will soon be swamped with all the extra tackling he and his players have to do.

It’s Rugby 101 that nothing happens unless you are able to win your scrum and lineout these days and, in large measure, the forward coach of the Wallabies at last year’s World Cup, Simon Raiwalui, did a serviceable job.

Indeed, on reflection, a better than serviceable job given the Australians dominated 63 per cent possession in the quarter-final against England.

They made more metres than Eddie Jones’ side (568-273), more carries (151-71), they beat more defenders (21-12) and they made more clean breaks (8-7).

Certainly in the first half they marginally held an edge over the England scrum, although by the death that ascendancy had been reversed. What they didn’t do was to put all that possession to good use.

There once was a time when any Australian team who could have returned such stats would have won in a canter, but the reality was the Wallabies were played off a break.

Under Cheika they were guilty of dumb rugby and, while it may be unfair to allow Raiwalui to be swallowed up in that statement, the reality is it really is “one for all and all for one” where rugby coaches are concerned.

They all flourish or they all wear a measure of the blame.

So it’s unlikely any member of Cheika’s coaching staff will survive with the Wallabies, although Rugby Australia sensibly has ensured defence coach Nathan Grey’s experience will not be lost by seconding him out to the Sunwolves for the duration of Super Rugby before then bringing him back into the Australian game in some capacity.

So the question is: where will the forwards coach come from? One option is to turn to Nick Stiles, the former Queensland coach who now coaches the Kintetsu Liners in Japan. Even if those seasons when the Reds were battling under Stiles, they were still virtually unbeatable in the set piece.

It would be surprising if Johnson did not at least consider former NSW and Western Force coach Michael Foley.

The two men served together as Wallabies assistants under John Connolly, so there is no way Johnson could be unaware of how good a coach Foley actually is.

Sadly, like Ewen McKenzie, Foley’s services have never been valued and he is slipping away from rugby.

If Australia regards it as a worthwhile exercise to ensure Grey is not lost to the system, then it surely should feel doubly indebted to McKenzie and Foley.

On the basis that his forwards were the best and most dominant in Australian rugby last season, Brumbies coach Dan McKellar certainly warrants consideration … which is as far as it should go.

He is the man who, at this stage, looms as Rennie’s successor as Wallabies coach and, as such, he needs all the experience he can muster as a head coach. Common sense dictates he should remain with the Canberra side.

Nonetheless, it will be fascinating to see what use Rennie makes of him this year.

McKellar has turned the driving maul into one of the sharpest try-scoring weapons in world rugby. Of the 65 tries the Brumbies scored in Super Rugby last season — second only to eventual title-winners, the Crusaders, with 73 — they scored 16 driving maul tries.

No other side in Super Rugby made it to double figures.

Yet at no point was McKellar invited into camp with the Wallabies to pass on the benefit of his wisdom. It was, to put it bluntly, a monumental folly.

It may be, of course, that Rennie has another forwards coach in mind, someone entirely outside the Australian system.

Steve Borthwick, the England forwards coach, is regarded as one of the best in the business — but only at lineouts. So a scrum coach would still have to be found.

Besides, Leicester Tigers were also moving on Borthwick soon after the World Cup, so it may already be too late.

Rugby Australia looks to have done a good job so far in assembling a Wallabies coaching staff.

They could perhaps have waited to see what the fallout of the All Blacks coaching appointment might be, to see whether Scott Robertson or Ian Foster was interested in coaching Australia.

But at least with Rennie they got a man who was willing to commit to the Wallabies, even though New Zealand still insisted they were interested in him.

But it may be they have left the most important role to last.

Get the right forwards coach and then Dave Rennie really will have something to work with.