IT has been a hectic seven days for Dave Rennie since he arrived in Scotland and immediately got down to work with the Glasgow Warriors as they build up for the start of the Guinness PRO14 season. Thankfully, he says, he has had plenty of help from the high profile brains trust that has been in charge.

The reality is that when the youngsters were sent out to face Northampton Saints yesterday, the preparation work had been done by the rest of his backroom staff. In his first few days on site, Rennie had been taking more of a backseat role as months of guiding the club by remote control from New Zealand evolves into the hands-on role for the season ahead.

For all that, says Jon Humphreys, who switched from the Scotland forwards coach to taking the same role at Glasgow, the fans should expect to see quick changes in the way the side play, after a summer where skill, speed and fitness have been the main focus.

After all, the one constant when the question of how New Zealand maintain their position as the best in the world is raised, is that they always do the basics brilliantly. With Rennie, a New Zealand coach, now in charge, he is looking to bring the same set of skills to Scotstoun.

So that was the programme he set out and drove from afar, but while he was guiding the Chiefs to the Super Rugby semi-finals, he had no choice but to leave the nitty gritty to his assistants. He says he is delighted with the results.

“It’s an excellent coaching group,” he said. “I know Jason [O’Halloran, the attack coach] well. We played against each other and I coached him when he was playing for Wellington. When he came back from Japan he came and ran our academy [at Manawatu] for three years, and then we coached together at Manawatu so I’ve had a lot to do with him.

“I tried to get him at the Chiefs, but the Scotland assistant job came up at the same time and he chose to come over here. It’s ironic that we’ve ended up together a few years later.

“I didn’t know a lot about Kenny [Murray, the defence coach], but the last time I was over, in March, I watched him present and run some sessions. He was outstanding and that gave me a lot of confidence he could run that job.

“With Humph [Humphreys], I spoke to a number of players including Filo Tiatia, a guy I coached at Wellington, and everyone really rated him. That was good. We had a lot of convers-ations and realised it would be a good fit.

“Mike [Blair] is impressive, driving a lot of our skill work with Jason and I, so we are fortunate to have an outstanding coaching group.

“I want guys to have responsibility and feel like they’re giving their pound of flesh, so these guys will get the opportunity to drive their areas, but we’ll want to challenge across the group – so even though the attack folio might be with Jason we’ll all chip in and challenge, to come up with the best result.”

It is an approach that has clearly resonated with the group. Few clubs have so much experience in the assistant roles – Humphreys and O’Halloran held the same positions with the national side while Humphreys has also been head coach at the Ospreys before moving north – but they are happy to pull together as a unit.

“When we came in, we talked a lot with Rens [Rennie] about how he wanted to run things,” Humphreys said. “His big thing was that he wanted to push the envelope, especially on how fit we could get, making ourselves far more durable through the season for the type of game we want to play.

“That was a massive focus. Then, with the skills, it was a case of taking it back to basics and with the club failing to make the play-offs last season we had an extended period of time to do all that, effectively another month, to go back to basic footwork, passing, tackle technique – all those kinds of things.

“The main benefit of that is that a lot of the young guys were exposed to it. With the forwards, there was a lot of work on going into the point of contact so that they can off-load. We want to be aggressive, we want to stay on our feet and we want to run really good lines off each other. That is stuff we have worked on and it has been good.

“I hope we will see more of the forwards getting involved in the action, being really physical. We have to be able to win playing both types of rugby: grinding it out when we need to, playing more expansively when we can. The players have probably worked harder than they ever have before. With the emphasis so much on fitness they had to and with the extra month, we had the time to do it.”

The changes are going to keep coming. Rennie says he aims to bring a couple more players in to strengthen the squad over the next few weeks or months and the style will be refined as he learns what works in European conditions and what does not.

It’s been a hectic start, but the pace does not look like slacking any time soon.