'It was like the Moneyball movie': Former Chief on Rennie's strategy

Former Chiefs prop Ben Afeaki has detailed some of the changes that made Dave Rennie’s era at the Super Rugby club so successful, including some stats analysis that, 14 years later, is now an essential part of player assessment.

Rennie famously became the first first-year head coach in Super Rugby history to lead a team to a title, doing so after the club finished 10th in the 2011 Super 14 and last in the New Zealand conference.

The coach was fresh off leading the Baby Blacks to three consecutive Junior World Championship titles and began his Chiefs tenure by taking a deep dive into the region’s history and connecting the club’s values and identity to the people, land, and history they were representing.

Rennie also brought in his own personnel, both on and off the field, and, as Afeaki explained this week, the changes were both innovative and effective.

“He definitely did (make every player better), and a lot of that probably ties in with the people he had around him as well: TC (Tom Coventry), Wayne Smith, Phil Healey, the trainer who’s currently working at Kobe,” the scrum coach recalled on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod, which can be found on RugbyPass TV.

“They brought in new stats around work rate and how fast you can get off the ground, all those kinds of stats added up. But also around the players, it was pretty much like the Moneyball movie; they picked on stats and people with a big work ethic.

“But he was also big on picking good buggers, which you’ll often hear him say. Every coach is similar in picking players that are good, but it just seemed to click the way he did it, around work ethic, stats to prove it, and the metrics to show you where we could improve.

“But then also, the coaching detail. We had a pretty world-class coaching crew. If you look at some of the names that have been thrown around now to join him (in the All Blacks), Straws (Andrew Strawbridge), he was with us. TC, we had Wayne Smith, and they all kind of just worked away in the background. But the detail was probably the best I’ve had…

“And when you look at our game back then, it was pretty open, flowing. We were looking at every opportunity to run. We would kick when we needed to.

“But a lot of our line breaks came down to the breakdown. We spent a lot of time trying to master the breakdown and just push the boundaries of the breakdown.

“So, the basics done very well was what they coached, but just giving us different tools during the breakdown, trying to create long rucks, that kind of play to open up around the ruck.

“I remember watching clips of some of our games and the amount of times we could break or get gain line, which is just coming in now, the big gain line stats, but to get gain line around the ruck and then pick apart the ruck was pretty cool to go back now and watch, as a coach.”

Rennie’s emphasis on the breakdown has been one of the most covered talking points since his appointment was announced, with many former players describing trainings and standards under the coach as “brutal.”

In the eyes of Afeaki, the reps certainly paid off, and enabled what would ultimately become a title-winning attacking system.

“We became pretty good at hunting,” he said. “We used to hunt ribs at breakdowns and all that kind of stuff. But that was like our prize, especially as forwards; when you’re not getting the flash tries that the backs do, that was our way to kind of get into the game early and then disrupt teams.

“I remember watching some clips, and it’s pretty brutal when you see boys just flying in 100 per cent and just trying to collect someone’s ribs when they’re not looking, but that kind of gave us our edge, and then that allowed us to play the way we played, which was pretty open, exciting footy.”