Hammett wary of Stormers threat

Despite his side’s win over the Sunwolves at the weekend, Highlanders assistant coach Mark Hammett feels there is still room for improvement.

Beating the Sunwolves is all very well but coping with the threat the Stormers provide in Dunedin on Friday is a different matter for the 2015 champions.

As a former coach of the Sunwolves, Hammett said he hadn’t been paying too much attention to them but he did acknowledge they appeared to have advanced since last year, their intensity had improved and they had some size in their backs.

He said the Stormers wouldn’t be happy with their performance against the Crusaders but at the same time if a few things had gone the other way at crucial stages of the game it might have been closer.

“They turned some ball over where they normally wouldn’t particularly inside the Crusaders’ 22m so it probably could have been a different sort of game,” he told the All Blacks’ official website.

“They got a couple of intercept tries, the Crusaders, so we’re not looking so much at that game but more at what they’ve done in the past.

“They’ve been very strong, they’re a dominant, hard-carrying team and they are a team that maybe slightly different from some of the African teams as they really try and attack hard out of their 22 at times.”

With a series of games ahead against African sides it was important to have things right technically because they were capable of taking advantage of that.

“We have plans around that, we like to run a lot so we’ve got to do it at the right places at the right time,” he said.

Hamment said it was expected Elliot Dixon would be released from hospital on Monday after a leg infection and it was possible he might be considered for the weekend.

But in his place at short notice, Dillon Hunt had taken his chance and was proving one of the success stories of the year for the side.

“He’s been playing outstandingly well and he just improves week on week,” said Hammett.

“He was thrust into a pretty hard position of not only playing the seven role we had him in an unfamiliar role in the lineout as well and I thought he handled that pretty well,” he said.

Centre Matt Faddes said he had enjoyed playing in his preferred position in Invercargill and felt playing centre helped him get more involved and allowed him to play better.

“We had a tough start to the season, with the New Zealand derby games it is never easy, I think we’ve had five of them, and I wouldn’t say it is easy, but it is refreshing going into the other end of the season,” he said.