Why Dave Rennie is committed to coaching the enemy

Dave Rennie says he is used to coaching “the enemy”. He has been doing so for a long-time.

Dave Rennie directs Wallabies training in the Hunter Valley this week Picture: Stuart Walmsley/Rugby Australia

Dave Rennie says he is used to coaching “the enemy”. He has been doing so for a long-time.

The Kiwi-born Wallabies coach rattles off a list of teams he has led as an outsider.

He points out the fact he was a Wellington boy but still coached Manawatu for six years. He grew up in the Hurricanes region, but led the Waikato Chiefs to two Super Rugby titles.

“Being a Kiwi, there’s always apprehension, ‘What’s my reason for being here and so on’,. Look, people that know me, know that I am all in,” Rennie says.

“I am used to coaching the enemy. This is on a slightly bigger scale but I am still coaching the enemy and people in Manawatu and the Waikato Chiefs region will know I am fully committed. The fact that I am a Kiwi doesn’t mean I don’t want this group to be the best they could be.”

Rennie has said he is here in Australia to make a difference. He says he aims to leave the place better than he found it. With the Wallabies ranked seventh in the world, a team laced with rookies, there is an obviously tough journey ahead.

But speak to anyone that knows the 56-year-old well and they say his strength is his ability to unite and knit a team together — quickly.

On the field there’s been hints that it’s working, a spirited draw against the All Blacks in Wellington, that revived the nation’s love of the team, but then a disappointing 27-7 loss in Eden Park. On Saturday they take on the All Blacks again in the third match of the series at ANZ Stadium with a rookie-heavy side.

“The aspiration for us is to be the best in the world and what we know is that is going to take a lot of work,” Rennie says. “Hence the reason why I have surrounded myself with high-quality people.”

“We’re only in our infancy, we are five weeks into a four-year campaign. We have got a long way to go, but we have made a positive start around culture and connection and getting the boys to understand the work ethic required to be successful at this level. It’s only a start.”

Rennie has arrived regarded by some as a “fabulous coach”.

Fox Sports analyst and former Wallaby captain George Gregan acknowledged the team under Rennie has been “trending and tracking in the right direction”. At a function recently for All Blacks coach Graham Henry said New Zealand Rugby “cocked up” by not appointing the now Wallabies coach as Steve Hansen’s successor as Kiwi coach.

A long-time close friend of “Rens”, former All Black Murray Mexted, is full of high praise for the coach.

“You’re lucky to have him coaching your national team,” Mexted says. “Dave has done the yards at the right levels, and has grown his abilities, they’re there for everyone to see …”

Rennie himself says he is fortunate to have been able to make a lot of coaching “mistakes off camera” at a club level and the like.

Back in the 1980s Rennie and Mexted played together in the Wellington provincial side — and Mexted was the man who kept him in professional coaching when Rennie missed out on the Wellington Hurricanes job in 2003.

Mexted soon recruited him to be a coach at the International Rugby Academy New Zealand (IRANZ), where he was witness to the former teacher’s growth as a coach over the years.

“He’s an inclusive character, with a very mellow personality in many respects, he’s not an autocratic abrasive coach, he’s quite the contrary to that,” Mexted says.

“That mellow personality, it allows players to grow, not feeling threatened, rather supported and in turn they are able to reach the levels they aspire to.”

As one Wallaby said when asked about Rennie’s style: “He is not a yeller.” Talk to any of the Wallabies in camp and the overwhelming message is that Rennie is a calm character who has brought them closer together.

Wallabies captain Michael Hooper tells The Australian: “He is very relaxed but he is also very certain in what he wants out of his team and the way he wants us to play. He takes a collaborative approach to building a team. He hears every perspective. He has time for all of the players.”

One of the small things that Rennie has introduced is that a Wallabies squad or staff member must always shake another’s hand when they see them in camp. and they must look the other person in the eye and make that initial greeting meaningful.

“Lots of boys have fancy handshakes. Scott Sio’s challenge is he’s got a different handshake with every person. That’s going to test his memory,” Rennis says. “Shaking hands, it’s a way of connecting, showing the guys you appreciate and value them. It’s only a little thing but it’s important.”

Rennie says as a group they’ve “done a lot of work” around “who we represent and how we want to be perceived” and one of the methods in which he has done that is with music.

Team meetings are always concluded with a song or two. And the song is usually pertinent to a team member’s cultural background, so there are Fijian, Samoan, Australian tunes being learnt by all.

Rennie grew up in a musical family, but describes himself as a “crash and bash guitarist”. However he sometimes leads the way with hits from the 60s and 70s. But he adds there are also about eight other guitarists in the Wallabies squad who usually take the lead.

“What we know with our group is that we are a real cultural mix, with origins all over the world. Our history has strong indigenous flavour, we have reflected on all of that, it is already a part of our DNA and we are trying to acknowledge that and honour that,” he says. “We’ve done a lot of that through music.”

Wallabies prop Allan Alaalatoa, who has a Samoan background and whose father Vili played for Samoa at the 1991 World Cup, says he feels there is a “genuine and authentic” care there under Rennie’s leadership.

“You can feel that it’s not just something that he thinks he needs to do because he is a head coach, but you can definitely feel it is genuine,” he says.

“The singing, it builds a bit more connection off the field, I was really impressed by that, I was impressed by the buy-in from everyone; whether you are Fijian, Samoan, Tongan, or Australian, all the boys are buying into to learning new songs and having a moment to connect, with something that is not rugby related. I think that was something really powerful, it’s something that helps us connect off the field.”

Alaalatoa is one of the more experienced members of the Wallabies side, with seven of the 15 starters taking the field on Saturday having played fewer than five Tests.

Rennie says while there’s been a lot of fun “team building” a young group, there is also a “real expectation of what winning looks like”.

“We haven’t been scared about talking about winning,” he says. “Because then you’ve got to reflect on what we’ve got to do, what does it look like on the training pitch, how we prepare and perform and how we drive and challenge each other (to win).

“We are only starting, we’ll be a lot better over time, our job at the moment is; we’ve got to find a way to win now. We’ve made a start, we are miles away from where we could be, but that doesn’t mean we are not going to throw everything at it on Saturday. We were disappointed with the way we responded in Auckland and I expect to see a reaction this week.”

Rennie says his strength is to surround himself with a great team of assistants who he “isn’t afraid” to be challenged by. Those who know him say his leadership style is more a “horizontal plate” than a pyramid.

“My time at the Chiefs, my time in Glasgow, I guess I have been influenced by lots of different people,” he says.

“A strength has been to surround myself with good people and I am not scared to surround myself with people who challenge me, and challenge what we are doing.

As a young boy growing up in New Zealand, Rennie didn’t aspire to coach the enemy. But why he is here, is also testament to the problems in Australian rugby and its lack of development of coaches.

“The reason I am here is the coaching development program has fallen away,” Rennie says. “There are a handful of Aussie coaches coaching overseas and I guess there wasn’t an obvious Australian to take over. Eddie (Jones) is involved with England, and you’ve got some other coaches heading programs in Europe, still cutting their teeth, I have a bit of responsibility there too to help develop the coaching stock through, likewise with the players too.”

Like he says, he hopes to leave Australian rugby in a better place than how he found it.