SA opting for competition with the north would be a disaster, says Rennie
CHIEFS coach Dave Rennie said it would be a “disaster” if South African teams were to be cut from Super Rugby.
With Sanzaar having entered into extensive discussions over the possibility of cutting a few teams from the competition, rumours that SA could have two teams axed from Super Rugby (reports have speculated that these teams could be the Cheetahs and the Kings) have surfaced.
This has led to suggestions that SA should instead go into competition with northern hemisphere teams, as travelling would be much less of a factor, and at a press conference at a local hotel yesterday, the Chiefs boss gave his opinion on the matter.
“I think the only ones saying it should be an Australasian competition only are the Australians. In the end, that’s what makes Super Rugby special… you travel to (the) republic. I think it would be a disaster if South African teams weren’t involved in Super Rugby,” Rennie said.
“I know they’re trying to fatten it out by bringing in the Jaguares and the Sunwolves, but you want to make sure that this is a premium competition. I think maybe SA having one team less and Australia having one team less would be better for those countries long-term.”
Turning his attention to their much-anticipated clash against the Stormers at Newlands on Saturday (5.15pm kickoff), Rennie said that they were not expecting a replay of last year’s massive 60-21 quarter-final thrashing of Robbie Fleck’s team, but instead said that they were rather cautious about the progress the Cape side has made since their last meeting.
“Maybe we surprised them a bit last year. That was our best performance last year, so we’d be very happy if we could emulate that kind of form. I’m pretty confident that we won’t be able to do that this time. It’s going to be a big step up on our performance over the last few weeks,” he said.
“They seem pretty fit because they’re playing type of game where they keep the ball alive and they’ve scored some outstanding, length-of-the-field tries. There’s no doubt they’re playing a bit more footy and they look more conditioned. They’ll be confident.
“Clearly they’ve done a bit of work on footwork, so our first-time tackles are going to be pretty important. And we’ll have to be aware of their attacking and offloading. They’re certainly the form team in their pool and we’ll prepare accordingly.”
Just like the Stormers, the Chiefs are unbeaten after six rounds, and despite having conceded only six tries in the competition so far and producing top performances, Rennie said that his team can still do “a lot better”.
“We’ve worked really hard up until this point, we reckon we can be a lot better. That’s exciting from my point of view because it means we still have a way to go,” Rennie said.
The New Zealanders will also be looking to make up for their match against the Bulls, which Rennie faulted, although the Chiefs did well to secure a bonus-point win after some high-pressure periods by the Bulls in the first half.
“I don’t think we played enough footy (against the Bulls), especially in the first half. We kicked too much ball away, especially from counter (attack) situations and we backed ourselves into a corner,” the mentor added.
Speaking of the Bulls, the Chiefs boss also put his relationship with the Bulls coaching team into perspective after reports surfaced that he had been sharing “information sessions” with the Bulls staff as part of a list of consultants who have worked with the franchise during the pre-season.
Rennie also denied reports of him having been approached for the Springbok job late last year, and described such talks as “fictitious.”
“I had a beer with Nollis (Marais) and Pine (Pienaar, assistant coach) after the Brisbane Tens,” Rennie explained.
“We played them in a game over there, so we caught up and had a beer the other night... not sharing any trade secrets, but we talked a lot about pre-season and how we do things and they do things.”