Stephen Donald unpacks what Dave Rennie’s comments reveal about his game plan

Current Sky Sport commentator and analyst Stephen Donald has examined new All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie’s latest public comments, centred around a “counter-attacking” game plan.

The Kobelco Kobe Steelers head coach travelled back to New Zealand last week, to get around the remaining Super Rugby Pacific franchises before taking in the action at FMG Stadium Waikato, between the Chiefs and the Highlanders.

The former Wallabies and Edinburgh head coach was interviewed on Sky Sport in Hamilton, covering multiple topics, including the structures and thought process behind a counter-attacking game plan.

“I mean, I’ve always had a mindset around counter attack and turnover attack, and there’s a massive amount of your possession that comes to you from kicks, and when I was in Scotland in particular, we got a lot of ball kicked to us, and so I established a bit of a structure around treating counter attack as a set piece, your biggest source,” Rennie said on Sky Sport.

“Last year I think the All Blacks scored three tries from counter attack and three from turnover attack, and so we want to change the mindset around that and have some accountability around it.”

Donald has identified the two biggest takeaways from Rennie’s comments, which could both be clues as to how the All Blacks may attack in 2026.

“First is the attitude, so if you want to go back in time and look at that rugby championship, what was our attitude towards counter attack, and that could flow into things like turnover ball, and that, and personally I don’t think it’s too big a stretch to say we were probably conservative on the attitude towards that,” Donald said on his Aftermatch Podcast with Kirstie Stanway.

“And then it’s your kicking game, because your kicking game creates counter attack, if you’re conservative on that, or you’re not looking to do too much, you don’t get counter attack opportunities if you get into a box kicking war, where there’s not going to counter-attack opportunities, because essentially a box kicks a 20 meter kick and a chase.

“Where I say it’s the attitude around both having a crack and your kicking game because if you can get into a wider channel and kick from the wider channel, you’re going to be able to kick longer, then you’re going to get one guy back there who invariably isn’t going to feel confident about counter attacking himself.

“So he’s going to kick it back to you, and all of a sudden you’re going to get kicks that aren’t off structured situations, which frees up the counter attack. So that’s a great stat, not a surprise that we were at the bottom of that.

“Because I don’t think in the last couple of years we’ve set ourselves up to be a counter attacking team through both attitude towards it and our kicking game.”