Q&A with the Glasgow Warriors head coach
Dave Rennie, Glasgow’s Kiwi head coach, tells NEALE HARVEY why he’s loving life in Scotland and is determined to add the PRO 14 to his impressive title collection after previously guiding Wellington, New Zealand U20s and Waikato Chiefs to success.
Enjoying your first full pre-season at Glasgow?
Yes. The boys have turned up in good nick and we’ve already done a lot of hard work and looked at micro-skills and skill development. It was tricky last year because our Super Rugby season was still going on in New Zealand, so it involved quite a few nights of getting my Chiefs work done and then jumping on Skype at 9pm to catch up with guys over here.
Big decision leaving New Zealand after so much success at Chiefs?
It was, but I’d been thinking about it for a while so when the Glasgow opportunity came up I paid a visit and spoke to a lot of people to make sure I was making an informed decision. I loved my time at Chiefs but the timing was right. I’d been there six years and it was time for them to have a different voice and some new direction, while I was able to come to a club that was in a pretty healthy state after Gregor Townsend had done such a good job.
Did you ever envisage a full-time career in coaching when you started out in amateur rugby at Upper Hutt, near Wellington, in the midnineties?
Not a hell of a lot was planned! I was a school teacher but the senior Upper Hutt coach walked out five weeks before the start of a season and they were desperate. A lot of players had but I got involved and ended up coaching Wellington B, then Wellington, before I got tipped out there and ended up back in club coaching. I never really had any aspirations to coach professionally but I got another chance as an assistant at the Hurricanes before coaching Manawatu and then taking charge of New Zealand U20s between 2008 and 2010.
You won three successive U20s world titles, so which future All Blacks that you helped bring through gave you the most satisfaction?
There were a couple at Manawatu who went on to play U20s and then make it with the ABs – Aaron Smith in 2008 and Aaron Cruden in 2009. I had a big association with Cruden because he played for me at the Chiefs as well and it’s been really pleasing to see them win World Cups, but to be honest there were a lot of guys in those U20s sides who went on to have great careers.
It must have felt pretty special to collect Super Rugby titles in your first two years as head coach at the Chiefs in 2012 and 2013?
We selected well and got some good young men together, picking up a few who weren’t on the radar of other Super Rugby sides, and then we just worked hard and added some edge to our game. We played with a lot of optimism in attack and with Wayne Smith running our defence that became a massive strength of ours. Those six years at Chiefs were special and we put ourselves in the race every year by reaching the play-offs, so I was really proud of that.
Is it true that your house was burgled on the night of your first Super Rugby final win with the Chiefs?
Yes. It wasn’t one of my fondest memories! Local burglers realised no one would be in and ransacked the place. From being on a massive high when we are at the stadium, to then be told your house had been broken into and ransacked was not the best thing. However, after dealing with the police we went back to the club rooms and enjoyed the rest of the evening. I’m pleased to say the two blokes who did it eventually spent time inside for other crimes.
You mentioned Wayne Smith earlier. How much of an influence was one of New Zealand rugby’s most respected men in shaping your coaching career?
Initially, I had the pleasure of working with Graham Mourie at Wellington. ‘Goss’ and I coached together for three years so he was massive for me – very analytical, a huge work ethic and innovative. Then with Smithy from 2012 to 2014, that was equally huge. To my mind he’s the best coach in the world so I used both those guys as mentors and still keep in touch with them. I caught up with Smithy this summer and he’s still hugely passionate about his rugby.
Back to Glasgow, how would you assess your first season in charge?
It was frustrating in the end. From our Eurogone pean campaign we learned a lot – it was a challenging Pool, as they all are, but it gave us an understanding of how brutal the competition could be, especially up front. When you’re taking on a side like Leinster, who are the best side in Europe, they are just unrelenting, defend like a brick wall and they believe in maintaining possession and applying pressure, so hopefully the lessons learnt there will help us this year. From a PRO 14 point of view, we had a really good year and were really clinical early on. Our conversion of opportunities was excellent, but that dried up at the most important time of the year. We were still creating opportunities but not nailing them and, after topping our conference, the 28-13 semi-final loss at home to the Scarlets was hugely disappointing, mainly because of our lack of intensity. When you don’t front-up like that it’s easy to blame the players, but as coaches we’ve got to look at our own preparation and what we did going into that game. We had a lot of time to plan with nearly a three-week break, so we’ll have a good look at that if we’re in the same position again. If we’d played well and lost you could accept it, but we fell well short of expectations.
What did you make of the new-look PRO 14 with its conferences and trips to South Africa?
Phil Healey, our head of S&C, was with me at the Chiefs and we’d travelled to South Africa eight times in those six years and were looking forward to not going there again! Then a couple of South African sides joined the PRO 14 late on, but actually our guys enjoyed it. It’s a whole week together down there and that was really good for the team.
As for the PRO 14, I think it’s a really good competition and I was very impressed by the positivity of play among the majority of sides. It’s a really good product and when you look at three sides – Leinster, Munster and Scarlets – reaching the semifinals of the Champions Cup, that’s an indication of its strength. It was different from what I was used to in that it’s a long campaign and you’ve got to manage and rotate your players with having so many internationals, but that’s really good for us as well because it means lots of young men get to play a lot of footy and their development has been great to see. It’s been awesome to see young guys like Matt Fagerson, George Horne and Adam Hastings playing international footy in June and giving a good account of themselves.
How big a season is it for fly-half Hastings now that Finn Russell has joined Racing 92?
We knew Finn was leaving at the start of the year and we’ve been really pleased with Adam’s development
throughout that time. He’s possibly our best kicking No.10, he’s incredibly competitive and he’s as fit as anyone can be with a really good skill-set as well. He’s got parts of his game to tidy up but he’ll do that by having his bum in the hot-seat. He was consistently in selection conversations towards the end of last season and I didn’t think that was going to be the case when it came to the play-off games, so he can be proud of what he’s done this year and going on tour with Scotland was a very good reward. The challenge for Adam now, though, is to improve and build on what he’s done, as opposed to being satisfied with it.
Is there nothing you could have done to stop Russell from going to France?
We couldn’t even get close to what he was offered there, but it’s probably good for him and the club as well. He’s had five years here and it’ll be a new challenge for him, while we can look to develop other young players. The benefit of guys like Finn staying in Scotland is that we can manage them better, as is the case with guys like Jonny Gray and Stuart Hogg, whereas if you go to France they want their pound of flesh. The biggest challenge for Finn this year is he’ll play a hell of a lot of rugby and between Six Nations matches he’ll be expected to go back and play in the Top 14, whereas here he’d be rested. But I think a little bit of time away from Scotland will benefit him and his bank balance will be pretty healthy too. After three years he can always come back.
With just two pro teams in Scotland, what do you make of the rugby landscape there?
There’s been a fair bit of work done regarding broadening the base of talent. It’s a challenge, though, and the majority of players representing Scotland come out of two clubs, so the issue is that if we lose hooker Fraser Brown to injury, George Turner then gets taken away by the national side and our resources are stretched. Hopefully, the introduction of a new six-team semi-pro league will help and the improvement of Edinburgh has been really good as well. That should ensure there’s a reasonably even split of players supplied by each of us to the national side. I think Scottish rugby is in good heart: both Scottish teams made the PRO 14 play-offs and Scotland had a really good Six Nations on the back of a strong autumn when they beat Samoa and Australia and pushed the All Blacks close. We’ve just got to make sure we’re identifying plenty of good young kids to come through because you can end up using 50-odd players a season.
Looking at the wider rugby landscape and New Zealand’s performances against France, can anyone stop them winning another World Cup?
The issue with France is they’re just not fit enough. As we saw in each of the three Tests, they were really competitive for big chunks of the games but the advantage the All Blacks have got is they pick their players from just five Super Rugby teams that are all well coached, well conditioned and play a similar type of high-paced, high-skilled game. That sort of intensity, allied to individual brilliance, really told in the second half of those matches. The French have got a pretty good side and they could have gone close to winning the Six Nations had they beaten Ireland, as they should have, but conditioning let them down and that’s a challenge for a number of teams up here.
Including England?
Eddie Jones, right, needs his players at Test level to be really well conditioned and ready to play at that standard and compete with the All Blacks, but maybe the clubs are more concerned about having a prop who can scrum well as opposed to being able to catch and pass. I think that’s a big advantage the All Blacks have and maybe it’s their point of difference.
Ireland, with their four-team provincial system, seem the closest to replicating the All Blacks?
That’s true, and you can see how well Ireland are doing. Joe Schmidt’s done a great job there and when you’ve got teams like Leinster and Munster providing the majority of the players and conditioning them accordingly, they’re going to be a massive threat at next year’s World Cup.
Steve Hansen has talked about standing down as New Zealand boss after the World Cup. Who do you fancy might replace him?
I’m not convinced he’ll go and if they win the World Cup he might stay on. But they’ve been grooming Ian Foster for a number of years now, while Joe Schmidt’s talked about leaving Ireland and heading home at some stage, so if that was true I’d imagine New Zealand Rugby would be working really hard to secure his services quickly. Joe’s hugely respected up here and he’d be a fantastic option, but there are a lot of experienced Kiwi coaches.
Would managing the All Blacks be your dream job?
I’d love to coach the ABs at some stage but it’s not going to happen in the near future. I’m not in a hurry, though, I spent ten years coaching NPC rugby before going into Super Rugby and I’m loving what I’m doing at Glasgow after six years at the Chiefs.
Along with Scarlets’ boss Wayne Pivac, you’ve been linked with the Wales job when Warren Gatland leaves next year. Anything in that?
Wayne has coached Scarlets for the last three years and coached a lot of the current Welsh national squad. He’s done a really good job there and that might potentially help, but there’s been a lot of speculation in the media and I don’t imagine Wales are in a hurry to make a decision. It’s a wee way off until the World Cup in 2019 so no doubt we’ll find out a bit more in the near future.
You’ve always aimed high, so what are your goals for Glasgow next season?
I’ve always want to win things so getting out of our Pool in Europe and being in the race for that, then being in the race for the PRO 14 at the end is a big target as well. We’ve got Cardiff, Lyon and Saracens in our Champions Cup Pool but we’re looking forward to the challenge there and we learnt lessons from taking on Leinster, Montpellier and Exeter last season. As far as the PRO 14 is concerned, we believe we’ve got a good enough team to make the play-offs and if we do top our conference and have a home semi-final again, we’ll make sure we get our prep right!
Scottish rugby is in good heart: both teams made the play-offs and Scots had good 6 Nations