Before he was coaching the Chiefs, Wallabies, or now the All Blacks, Dave Rennie stood in front of a room full of restless twelve and thirteen-year-olds in Upper Hutt, trying to hold their attention long enough to teach a lesson. This detail about Rennie is often overlooked in favor of the trophies and test match scores. To be honest, it’s a strange image. The same man who is currently in charge of one of the most scrutinized positions in international sports used to spend his days supervising intermediate school students who were too old for primary school but not quite prepared for secondary school.
Rennie attended Heretaunga College, a state school in Upper Hutt, where he was raised. That aspect of his story isn’t particularly glamorous, and that’s kind of the point. No elite system was used to expedite him. He was a young man from the area who played wing and center for Upper Hutt RFC. He was talented enough to make Wellington’s provincial team, but his playing career was cut short at the age of 27 due to a recurrent shoulder injury.
The part worth sitting with is what transpired next. After completing his teaching training, Rennie accepted a position at an intermediate school, which requires more patience than glitz. “Teaching, coaching, it’s the same thing” is a remark he frequently returns to when discussing this period of his life. The children are slightly larger. This quote seems insignificant until you see how he manages a team. It has a structure, like someone who is accustomed to controlling people in a room instead of just writing plays on a whiteboard.
Later in his coaching career, it’s difficult to ignore how frequently that teaching instinct manifests itself. The 2000 Wellington Lions position involved more than just hiring a coach; it also involved persuading a group of seasoned, senior players, including Christian Cullen and Jonah Lomu, to embrace a change. He succeeded. In a match that is still discussed in Wellington rugby circles, the Lions defeated a Canterbury team dominated by All Blacks. Three years later, he led the New Zealand Under-20s to three consecutive world championships with players who would later become All Blacks: Julian Savea, Sam Whitelock, and Aaron Smith. That is more of a pattern than a coincidence. It turns out that he had been instructing young athletes for years, but using a whistle rather than a marker pen.
This story also has a softer side that is seldom featured in the highlight reels. Rennie owned a pub called the Lonely Goat Herd while he was an amateur coach in Upper Hutt. He’s a guitarist. He cultivates gardens. None of that screams elite sporting pedigree, which may be precisely why his teams have tended to react to him. Rennie has an ordinary quality that persists even after winning Super Rugby titles with the Chiefs or a Rugby Championship campaign with Australia.
He has now been given the All Blacks position, replacing Scott Robertson, decades after he stood in front of that intermediate school classroom. It remains to be seen if his classroom instincts translate to the highest pressure of test rugby. However, it’s important to keep in mind that long before he was referred to as a head coach, he was called “sir.”
