Rennie in line for Aust role
ANALYSIS: The final round of the Six Nations was worth the alarm clock pain for the rugby alone, whether it was Ireland’s capitulation in the teeming rain in Cardiff, Warren Gatland’s satisfaction, England’s bossing of the Scots in the first half at Twickenham or the Scots’ incredible response.
But for Australian fans, it was also an opportunity to ponder the merits of potential Wallabies coaches as their teams went head to head in what was, with apologies to the Rugby Championship, the most compelling test rugby series in the world.
It was Scott Johnson’s last professional engagement with Scotland before he starts as Australia’s director of rugby early next week. And if rumours filtering down from the UK are to be believed, Johnson could be bringing a good portion of Scotland’s coaching ranks with him.
Sources have told the Sydney Morning Herald that Glasgow coach Dave Rennie is firming as Rugby Australia’s pick to replace Michael Cheika after the World Cup and Scotland’s respected Australian defence coach Matt Taylor is being touted as a potential deputy.
The RA board is not expected to tackle the issue formally until Johnson has both feet under the desk. Even then the outgoing Scotland director of rugby will have a few pressing issues to deal with first, including finding an attack coach for Michael Cheika, convening the first meeting of the new test selection panel and running the rule over the Wallabies’ pre-World Cup plans.
But there is no doubt a large portion of Johnson’s time will be spent, in conference with RA chief Raelene Castle, assembling the best team possible for the post-Cheika era. The former Waratahs and Leinster coach is contracted until the end of the year but there is little chance he will see that out, miracle or not in Yokohama on November 2.
Rennie may not have been at Twickenham to watch Sam Johnson, his centre at the Warriors, score a 75th minute try to put Scotland out to a 38-31 lead.
But plenty of the expatriate talk in England was about the Super Rugby titlewinning former Chiefs coach as the hot tip to take the reins in Australia at the end of the year, with Taylor – a former flanker from Queensland – in tow. What RA will do about the one-year extension Rennie signed with Glasgow in January will be a matter for them and his manager.
One coach who was at Twickenham was Eddie Jones, forced to watch his players open up a 31-7 halftime lead then surrender it, try by try, until Johnson looked to have pulled off a watershed win for the Scots. A George Ford try and conversion sealed a 38-38 draw, with Jones left to concede his squad lacked the mental edge to put teams to the sword.
There remain pockets of entrenched opposition to a Jones return for Australia, with memories still fresh of his messy exit from the job in 2005 and by now folkloric talk of the exacting and exhausting standards he sets among his playing groups and staff.