Off-contract Dave Rennie ‘potentially’ open to All Blacks job as NZ Rugby prepares to reveal appointment process
Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Rennie has 3-2 winning rate against Rassie Erasmus and ability to connect with players and staff.
Coach didn’t contest job after Steve Hansen’s exit as overseas-based coaches lost faith in NZ Rugby.
NZ Rugby unlikely to rush new appointment before start of Super Rugby.
Former Chiefs and Wallabies coach Dave Rennie will come off contract with Japanese club Kobe in June and is “potentially” interested in the vacant All Blacks job, The Post understands.
Rennie, 62, has kept his counsel since being sacked by Rugby Australia in 2022 but a well-placed source has told The Post that the Super Rugby-winning coach is watching the New Zealand Rugby process unfold with interest as he weighs up his next move.
Crucially, Rennie’s contract in Japan ends in the middle of the year, a factor in his favour after Tony Brown exclusively revealed to The Post on Monday that he has no out-clause with the Springboks and is locked in with South Africa until the 2027 Rugby World Cup.
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Brown’s position reflects the challenge NZ Rugby faces in attracting the right people for the job, but there are also broader and systemic question marks at play that elite New Zealand coaches across the world - such as Rennie - are all too aware of.
Rugby industry insiders believe that NZ Rugby’s lack of a director of rugby has seen them slip behind some peers over the past decade, with the likes of Ireland and Scotland employing that framework to great effect.
There is a belief that a strong and experienced director of rugby would have spotted the red flags attached to Scott Robertson before he was even appointed, rather than being uncovered by NZ Rugby chair David Kirk, board director Keven Mealamu and consultant Don Tricker two years into his tenure.
The soon-to-depart Mike Anthony has been NZ Rugby’s head of high performance, but he has no coaching experience to lean back on and the quality of coaches in the New Zealand system - from NZ Schools, under-20s and the All Blacks - is deemed by some to have suffered.
The past two All Blacks coach appointment processes - for Ian Foster and Robertson - have therefore not engendered a degree of trust among the New Zealand coaching fraternity, with Sir Graham Henry previously lamenting the lack of candidates before Foster was appointed in 2019.
Rennie opted out of process to replace Steve Hansen and was already in the sights of then Rugby Australia chief executive Raelene Castle, who appointed him as Wallabies coach.
The rigorous and unsparing review into Robertson’s coaching is likely to have rebuilt some of that lost trust in NZ Rugby’s high-performance bona fides, but the organisation may need more work to soothe potential coaches’ concerns.
Nevertheless, the fact that Rennie is at least considering a crack at the All Blacks job will be a boost for NZ Rugby, given that he meets many of their needs.
Rennie has a long history of building strong relationships with players and staff and also had a 3-2 winning record with the Wallabies against against Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks, a rarity in this current era of South African supremacy.
Current All Blacks Ardie Savea and Anton Lienert-Brown play under Rennie at Kobe, where All Blacks locking great Brodie Retallick is captain.
In the wake of his Wallabies sacking, numerous Australian players made it clear that he retained the strong support of the dressing room and the subsequent appointment of Eddie Jones was a disaster.
Separately, The Post understands that NZ Rugby won’t be rushed into appointing the next All Blacks coach and is trying to ensure that the rigour it applied to the Robertson review is repeated with the appointment process.
That means that the next coach might not be in place before the start of Super Rugby Pacific, with more details on the process to be unveiled later this week.
Joe Schmidt and Jamie Joseph appear to be the other leading candidates, although Brown’s unavailability is a blow to Joseph’s chances.
There are also rumours that Rugby Australia has already locked Schmidt in to a consultancy role after his Wallabies contract finishes in July, while his stocks also remain high in Ireland and a lot of his close family now live in the Dublin area.