MUST DO BETTER
Rennie sees room for improvement but has to take his share of the blame for poor finish to Warriors’ season
IT is Wednesday, August 16 of last year and Dave Rennie has just taken over as head coach of Glasgow Warriors. He is sitting in the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow when he is asked how important it is for his new team to make a fast start to the league campaign.
‘Mate, it’s not how you start but how you finish in this league,’ said the New Zealander, who had been in the country just three days. ‘This league is decided by knockout footy.
‘We just have to make the play-offs and make sure we peak for them. That is when we have to be at our best. Not before.’
As things turned out, the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men — particularly New Zealand rugby coaches — gang aft agley.
His team were on fire up until just before Christmas and won their first ten league games. Not surprisingly, they secured a home Pro14 semi-final before anybody else.
The stage was then set against Scarlets on Friday night for Rennie to practice what he preached. To peak for the knockout match against the Welsh outfit — as he expected and had planned towards all season.
However, his team did not even leave base camp, let alone get anywhere near the top of their form.
Rennie has to take his fair share of the blame for that.
He didn’t get his side fired up enough and, by half-time, Scarlets were 21-3 ahead and already had one foot in the final in Dublin next weekend.
Glasgow’s discipline was dreadful — Nick Grigg picked up a yellow card — and defensively they were poor.
‘Must do better,’ was how Rennie, a former teacher, summed up his end-of-term report card as his side’s season came to an abrupt end. Looking a bit shell-shocked outside the Glasgow dressing room, he could not immediately put his finger on why his team kept their worst home league performance of the season for their most important game. Over the next three weeks when he is in New Zealand visiting his family on holiday, he needs to give it some thought. Maybe Glasgow were ring-rusty after not playing for three weeks since the end of the regular season. Certainly, the loss of Stuart Hogg 20 minutes before kick-off with a bout of food poisoning didn’t help. Neither did the below-par performances of some of Glasgow’s star players, such as Tommy Seymour and Finn Russell. Rennie was not about to apportion blame.
‘Finn’s been a great servant here and I am not going to have a flick at him on the way out,’ said the Kiwi coach. ‘Tommy didn’t get a lot of ball in his hands.
‘When we look back on the game in the cold light of day, without all the emotion, there was a lot of positive stuff.
‘But our inability to hang on to the ball for long periods hurt us. We also needed to be more dynamic through the middle. We weren’t always that sharp against Scarlets, so you’ve got to take your hat off to them.’
Rennie revealed he would be bringing in seven new players for next season, including a few to bolster his under-performing pack, but surprisingly not a new fly-half.
Russell, who had a disappointing final game for the club before his big-money move to Racing 92, is world class on his day. There is nobody left at Glasgow who comes close to reaching that level, yet Rennie is happy with the players he has in that position for next season. It is a decision he may come to regret.
‘I am not in the market for another ten at this stage,’ said the Warriors head coach. ‘We have Adam Hastings, Peter Horne and we also have Brandon Thomson in the squad. Ruaridh Jackson may play a bit of ten for Scotland when he is away with them in the summer.’
On the positive side, he has young players such as scrum-half George Horne and flanker Matt Fagerson, both of whom will get better next season. Horne is now first-choice scrum-half at Glasgow ahead of Scotland internationals Henry Pyrgos and Ali Price.
‘The rise of George Horne has been really impressive,’ said Rennie. ‘He deserved to start against Scarlets.
‘Matt Fagerson is only 19. He will get better and better.’
Rennie is to give his players a month off before returning to training for next season. He feels they need to clear their heads after the disappointment of losing in the Pro14 semi-final and going out at the group stages of the European Champions Cup.
‘The boys need to mentally freshen up,’ said Rennie. ‘They will be expected to work hard when they get back, so we can build on things. It is important you get away, clear the head and get excited about next season.
‘I am going to go back to New Zealand for about three weeks. We have got two grand-daughters, one who was born a couple of weeks ago. I am on orders from my wife to spend a bit of time there and then I’ll get back into it with Glasgow.
‘We have the makings of a good side for next season, with more strength in depth. When we start pre-season, we will not be starting from scratch this year as I missed most of the last pre-season. We will have a bit of a head start. Hopefully, we will hit the ground running.’
That would be all well and good for Rennie but as this season has showed, just as he predicted, it is not how you start the Pro14 but how you finish it that matters.