Dave Rennie: All Blacks Head Coach, Chiefs Titles and Wallabies Years

Dave Rennie has a way of making a press conference sound like a casual chat while saying something pointed. On Thursday, ahead of the second Bledisloe Cup Test in Sydney, the All Blacks head coach was asked about the 2027 Rugby World Cup draw, which has New Zealand and South Africa on course for a quarter-final. “It will be nil-all at full-time,” he joked, then called the draw “crazy”. South African fans, who follow the Springboks with a seriousness most people reserve for elections, have been searching his name ever since.

Born in 1963 and raised on rugby in Upper Hutt

David Noel Rennie was born on 22 November 1963. He is a New Zealander who also has Cook Islands heritage, which made him eligible for the Cook Islands side. He played once for them, in a non-capped match in 1990. As a player he was a centre, turning out for Upper Hutt RFC near Wellington and for the Wellington Lions, with whom he won the National Provincial Championship in 1986. A recurring shoulder problem ended his playing days at 27, according to Wikipedia.

He did not leave the game. He coached Upper Hutt, and at the same time he ran a pub called the Lonely Goat Herd. He was also a schoolteacher, working with 12 and 13-year-olds at an intermediate school. He has compared the two jobs directly: teaching and coaching are the same thing, he says, except the kids are a bit bigger.

A provincial coach who won everything

Rennie became assistant coach of the Wellington Lions in 1999 and head coach in 2000. In his first season in charge the Lions won the NPC, their first title since the 1986 side he had played in. He then moved through the Hurricanes system, coaching the under-23s and later working as an assistant, and spent part of that time with the New Zealand international academy.

From 2005 to 2011 he coached Manawatu, where a short-term contract became a seven-year stay and ended with the Turbos finishing runners-up in the 2011 ITM Cup. In the middle of that period he took over the New Zealand under-20s and won three consecutive world titles, from 2008 to 2010. Producing three world champion junior teams in a row is the sort of record that tends to get a coach noticed.

Two Super Rugby titles at the Chiefs

Rennie joined the Chiefs for the 2012 season. They won the title in his first year, beating the Sharks 37–6 in the final, which made him the first coach to win Super Rugby in his first season. The day itself had a strange footnote. While the Chiefs were winning, his house was burgled and valuables were taken. They won again in 2013, beating the Brumbies.

Wikipedia quotes one description of him as hard-nosed, someone who does not tolerate fools but has a deep rugby intelligence.

Glasgow Warriors: a final at Celtic Park

In August 2016, Glasgow Warriors announced that Rennie would replace Gregor Townsend for the 2017–18 season. His first year ended in a Pro14 semi-final defeat at home to the Scarlets, and the club finished bottom of its pool in the European Champions Cup. The 2018–19 season went better. Glasgow reached the Pro14 final at Celtic Park and drew the biggest attendance that final had seen, but they lost to Leinster, with a Stuart Hogg error helping Leinster to the win. In Europe they qualified out of their pool and met Saracens in the quarter-final, taking them close at home before losing in London.

When the Covid pandemic cut the 2019–20 season short, Rennie left, and Danny Wilson took over on 1 June 2020. On his way out, Rennie said he had loved Scotland, the food and especially the laughter. He singled out a seafood restaurant on the water near Oban as one of the best meals he had eaten.

The Wallabies years

On 20 November 2019, Rugby Australia announced Rennie as head coach of the Wallabies, replacing Michael Cheika. He ran the team from 2020. The record from those years is mixed: runner-up in the 2021 Rugby Championship, and trophy wins in the Nelson Mandela Challenge Plate in 2021 and 2022, the Puma Trophy in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the Trophée des Bicentenaires in 2021, the Hopetoun Cup and the James Bevan Trophy in 2022.

It ended badly. On 12 November 2022 the Wallabies lost 28–27 to Italy in Florence, their first ever defeat to the Azzurri, and Rennie defended the heavy team changes he had made. Rugby Australia announced on 16 January 2023 that he would be replaced by Eddie Jones, well ahead of the World Cup.

Kobe and the call from New Zealand

Rennie went to Japan for the 2023–24 season to coach the Kobe Steelers, bringing in Mike Blair, a former Edinburgh head coach who had been his assistant at Glasgow. It was a quieter chapter, and it kept him in head-coaching work while the Wallabies project was being taken apart.

On 4 March 2026, he was announced as All Blacks head coach ahead of the 2026 Nations Championship, replacing Scott Robertson, who had been dismissed in the middle of the World Cup cycle. That was a rare move in New Zealand rugby. Rennie became the man in charge of the most scrutinised job in the sport about a year and a half before the 2027 tournament.

The 2026 season so far

Rennie arrived with the team under pressure. Planet Rugby writes that the All Blacks came into the first Bledisloe Test off three losses. They then won at Eden Park, where they had not lost since 1994, and secured the Bledisloe Cup, which they had held for more than twenty years. Rennie has said the side used the expectation rather than avoiding it. Asked about the legacy, he talks about the jersey and the mindset more than about trophies.

That is the context for his comments on the draw. The World Cup was expanded for 2027, and the draw was moved later, yet it still places the top two ranked teams in the same half, with the winner of New Zealand against South Africa facing France. Rennie pointed out that in the football World Cup the four best sides in the world met in the semi-finals. He then reminded everyone that to win a title you have to beat everyone anyway, so the path is what it is. The line “it is what it is” is typical of him.

South Africa’s coverage has picked up the quote, including SA Rugby magazine, which published video of the press conference. Another report on the same remarks came from Nine’s rugby desk, because the Wallabies are the next opponent, in Sydney on Saturday, the same venue as a World Cup meeting next year.

Outside the game

Rennie plays guitar and likes landscape gardening, both listed in his Wikipedia profile. He rarely talks about his private life in public, and this profile follows his lead.

What he is known for

Across a long coaching career, Rennie’s pattern is consistent: quick success with provincial and franchise sides, a willingness to bring young players through (he said as much on leaving Glasgow), and a straight way of speaking that the press usually enjoys. The Wallabies stint shows the risk in that, since the same bluntness can look defensive after a loss. Whether he can turn a team that was recently losing into World Cup favourites will not be decided by this Saturday’s game, but the Sydney Test is a useful early read.

Sources

• Planet Rugby
• SA Rugby magazine
• Nine
• Wikipedia