Quade Cooper: The ‘big difference’ Dave Rennie will make and what the All Blacks ‘lacked’ under Scott Robertson
All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie and former Wallabies fly-half Quade Cooper.
Former Wallabies fly-half Quade Cooper expects new All Blacks boss Dave Rennie to make an immediate impact in the role.
It was the current New Zealand head coach who ended the playmaker’s four-year international exile by bringing him back into the fold in 2021.
Cooper therefore knows Rennie well and, after a mixed couple of years under Scott Robertson, reckons that he can be the person to rekindle New Zealand’s magic.
‘Very uncharacteristic’ All Blacks
“I certainly know that he will make a big difference. The All Blacks have got all the talent in the world and I think over the past few years they lacked a little bit of detail,” he told Sky Sport NZ’s The Breakdown show.
“The detail is the biggest thing. When I came back into the Wallabies in 2021, the last time I had played was around 2017, so the game had changed a hell of a lot in that small period of time, but the level of detail that he had going into a game, as a number 10 and a game caller, I walked into that locker room with so much confidence knowing exactly what I had to do each game.
“When I watched the All Blacks the last few years, it just seemed that there was a lack of detail. When you’re putting those words in a sentence with the All Blacks, it’s very uncharacteristic.
“That’s the difference that Rens brings and also the cultural side of it. New Zealand has always been built on culture first and it seemed like there was a lack of culture, which again is something you never attribute with the All Blacks.”
Robertson was sacked due to NZ Rugby’s concerns over the All Blacks’ ‘trajectory’ with reports of player unrest and issues around team culture.
The latter is something Rennie is renowned for getting right, with Cooper, who was born in New Zealand, detailing how he managed to bring the Wallabies squad together.
Players will ‘run through brick walls’
“If you think about Australia, Australia is one of the most multi-cultural countries in the world, and when you look around the locker room at the Wallabies camp, there are Pacific Islanders, New Zealanders – there’s all types of different cultures,” he said.
“What’s been very hard for a lot of the coaches previously is about being able to bring that altogether because Australian culture at its heart is very different.
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
“The make-up of the team nowadays, at least 60 per cent of the team is either from Polynesian descent, New Zealand – all over the world – so he did a great job of being able to respect all of those cultures and ultimately bring them in under the umbrella of Australian culture.
“Being a New Zealander, he’s going to understand that first and foremost. If you can get the best out of the boys culturally, they will go out and run through brick walls.
“You’ve got the best athletes in the world. If you couple that with the detail that he brings…”
READ MORE: Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby announce historic Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Tests
