It came down to two in the end, with David Rennie trumping Jamie Joseph – the former All Black who coached Japan to a landmark last-eight finish at their home Rugby World Cup in 2019 – in the final round of interviews.
The headline figures from Rennie’s last stint in Test rugby don’t make great reading. He departed Australia in January 2023 with only a 38% win rate. One of the losses on his card was a first-ever defeat by Italy.
However, those who were looking in finer detail felt he had been hard done by. Negotiating the Covid period and all the constraints that brought, along with a clutch of injuries in key positions, Rennie still fostered a togetherness among the Wallabies that was evident in three victories over South Africa and a narrow series defeat to England in 2022.
His final few games in charge of Australia, at the end of 2022, summed it up. On the face of it, only two wins – against Scotland and Wales – and that historic defeat by Italy in a five-match northern hemisphere tour seems sub-par. However the other two results were losses by one and three points respectively to France and Ireland, teams who would go to the following year’s Rugby World Cup as leading title contenders.
Certainly Rennie’s record aged well. Eddie Jones, who replaced him for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, was divisive off the pitch and then disastrous on it, with the Wallabies losing to Fiji and Wales and failing to get out of their pool for the first time in tournament history.
Rennie was also highly respected during his three years at Glasgow Warriors, where he took the team to the Pro14 final in 2019, and went about his business in a calm, considered way.
He will need that composure in a high-pressure job that seemed to ruffle predecessor Scott Robertson. But Rennie is due another crack at the Test stage.
