Stephen Donald weighs in on Dave Rennie's possible assistants

Rennie was named the new head coach of the All Blacks last Wednesday, after over nine years away from New Zealand.

Former All Black winning first-five Stephen Donald has been coached by Rennie and his rumoured lead assistant candidate, Neil Barnes.

Barnes is the current head coach of Taranaki and was involved with the Chiefs for a long period of time with Rennie, and other rumoured candidate, Andrew Strawbridge.

Donald, speaking on The Breakdown, explained what their possible portfolios could be, and what that could mean for the current crop of assistants who remain after Scott Robertson’s departure.

“Well, I mean, straight away, the first one that comes to mind is the Taranaki farmer Neil Barnes. I would think he’ll be high on the list, obviously, as a forwards coach,” Donald told The Breakdown.

“Don’t let the exterior fool you. He’s a very intelligent, smart and attacking minded coach, which is the exciting thing, so I’d imagine he’s an obvious one.

“And then I think Andrew Strawbridge is another obvious one, who’s been there right through a lot of Rennie’s career. He’ll be, I would imagine, in the skills department as he’s big on the micro details we have, footwork around catch and pass, so I’d imagine he will be another one of the real key ones.”

“Barnsey I imagine would be forwards, and then there’d be a scrum coach separate of it, and Barnsey would do things like kick off receives and stuff like that.

“Strawbridge would be very much across everything with the skills, like obviously your extra sessions that would be run by Strawbridge, as far as up-skilling and I guess improving the All Blacks in that field.”

Former All Black Jeff Wilson adds that because of how the appointment process played out, he would like to believe that NZR will allow Rennie to appoint the team he would prefer heading into a short-term contract.

“The fact that the process of appointing the coach was thorough, I’d like to think that this appointment process is the same, Dave Rennie wants to get his guys.

“He’ll get some people he’s got real trust in, he’s already talked about how he feels as though he’s got some people who can make a difference immediately, and that’s what he’s going to need.”

Wilson hopes the process will also take into account what happened under Robertson, and that Rennie will be challenged on who he would like to bring into the environment.

“But I want to make sure that we get the best people available as well, and I’d like to think that there’s another interview process that goes on.

“That Dave Rennie doesn’t just get carte blanche to go, these are the guys I want, and we have to live with this because ultimately, what we’ve seen is that sometimes it hasn’t worked, sometimes the wrong people have come in, sometimes they’ve had people in this last regime who have walked away.

“I’d like to think they don’t rush this either. Take their time to make sure the right people understand what it means to be an All Black.”