Hammett puts the onus on togetherness
TOBY ROBSON
Last updated 05:00 23/02/2012


Mark Hammett felt like he managed the Hurricanes last year, this season he says he feels like he's coaching them.

It's a statement that will only add ammo to Hammett's detractors who will sharpen their knives tomorrow when he names his side to play the Stormers in Cape Town on Sunday.

It will be bereft of a familiar galaxy of stars, but on the eve of the Super Rugby kickoff, the Hurricanes coach has promised the team's supporters his players will make them proud regardless of results.

"I hope they look at the games and look at the effort. I hope they look at the games and try to see are we trying to play smart? Do they have a pattern? That's something we are developing and have shown over the pre-season.

"If our fans can say, `actually these guys don't give up, they don't throw the towel in', then I'll be happy."

It's the sort of talk that could be construed a pre-emptive apology for a side written off at the TAB where they were out to $4 yesterday to beat the Stormers ($1.22) and $30 to win the Super Rugby title. Professional sport is not about participation, and a season of gutsy losses won't wash with the paying public.

But Hammett believes on-field success will not be achieved if his players judge their worth solely on their 80-minute performances, and believes a more holistic approach will come to the fore as the season progresses.

"I don't want to be blunt, but these guys have a responsibility to the community. There are lots of ways to achieve that, but it can't be met with, `OK, we have to do this, because it's part of it', you do it because you want to do it, because these are the people who come and support you," he said.

"I don't care if these guys have been in successful teams of the past or now. Even if we had a great year last year the expectation would be the same this year – it's something I'm absolutely passionate about.

"It [connecting with the community] flows through [to winning] because if all you are thinking about is winning an 80-minute patch each week you are going to lose in so many other areas."

Hammett's made a point of not talking about the internal ructions that marred last season's campaign and led to his decision to release All Blacks Ma'a Nonu and Andrew Hore. However, he does say there have been major shifts from players and management this year in their approach to the season. "Last year it became manage the group rather than coach the group. I'm a coach, that's my strength and so that's been a big focus.

"First year, you are working out your own management group, the strengths and weaknesses of that group. We were developing that at the same time as a team, so there was a lot of detail. You have to get to the end of that first year, take a big breath.

"Obviously there were things we had to do, but we've put a line through those and we are at the starting point we wanted to get to and now have some pretty clear goals of what we want to achieve."

Those include winning in South Africa where a tough start sees the Hurricanes play the Stormers, Lions, then Western Force in Perth before they head home to Westpac Stadium.

Surely premature to write the bloke off before a ball's been kicked. It's not like the big names he cleared out have delivered trophies. Brave bloke to put so much trust in young talent. I'll be quietly hoping the Canes shock the world and have a good year.

Probably the most divisive character in NZ rugby right now, this is a big season for the Hurricanes coach. Reviled by some Hurricanes fans, I personally like what I'm hearing from him. The Hurricanes have in the years I have followed them have struggled to play to a pattern or have any consistency but that is what The Hammer is trying to bring. Personally I reckon he deserves this season to imprint his philosophies on this team. I'm giving him a chance to prove himself before I write him off, what say the rest of the Canes fans?

The truth is the Hurricanes got out of jail many times by individual brilliance from one or two players. I think you'd struggle to say that they had much of a pattern. I'm one of the biggest Hurricanes fans on the bored but I'm well aware of the problems of the team. We'll see what Hammett does but as I say, he deserves this season before we write him off.

I'm not going to have a go at Hammett for my first post on what should be an epic thread. But I will take issue with the bolded bit.

You don't make the semi finals 5 times in 7 years playing inconsistent rugby without a pattern. I think the thing to remember is that the superstar backs era (Lomu, Cullen, Umaga) predates this period, so the usual line of backs keeping them in the game can't be applied to this era. Throughout the Cooper era, aside from his final year where he had gone way to far, the Canes played consistent structured rugby - not Crusaders style though because they didn't have the resources of the Crusaders - based around their strengths of awesome loose forwards, damn good backs, supported by a tight 5 that was made competitive by Cooper. However, they always lacked a top class 10 which was the key failing - not point having Maserati's and Ferrari's outside and Hummers inside if you have a soviet era Lada in the middle. They finally got that class 10 in the last few years, a guy they could have built a team around, but ....

The 'I'm going to install a pattern and a structure' mumbo jumbo is just bullshit coaches use when they want to enforce their style. Mitchell said the same thing and then de-powered the ABs at ruck time, him that kind of happened last year as well.

So in 5 seasons they must have been getting out of jail nearly every week. You don't regularly make the semi finals by getting out of jail on the backs of individual brilliance.

Does the fact that it took the individual brilliance of Ron Cribb to win the 2000 final for the Crusaders lessen the fact that the Crusaders have a structure or pattern? Does the fact they won in 1998 through a get out of jail bounce of the ball (and a little help from Paddy O'Brien) mean they too don't have a structure? I could go on and on with cases of individual brilliance in successful teams.

You're one of the biggest fans of the Canes yet you're not ready to actually analyse the actual merits of the team over these years. The Canes actually over achieved many years. They have never had the true firepower across the board that the Crusaders or the even the Blues have had.

Re: The Canes lack of structure etc. It seems like if it is said enough it becomes true, and the NZRU and Canes have had an extremely compliant media to push that view for a year and a half now. The reality is, that was the Canes of the 1990s, who were really underdeveloped in the forwards so had to play hit and run rugby, it has been untrue of the Cooper era.

If people want to give Hammett a shot then fair enough but don't justify it by bullshitting about the previous era. Just admit you like inexperienced coaches rolling the dice and be done with it .

Correct Uncle FB. The Hurricanes were the 3rd most consistent finalists after the Crusaders and Bulls.

This BS sounds like the same hackneyed crap that every new England or Golden Lions coach comes out with, except for the part when he disrespects his predecessors and players (some now ex) achievements.

Who is this guy?

I would agree here, our forwards have generally been underpowered and reliant upon some petty poor players or those who haven't been up to the standard consistently. That is where we have struggled and that is where I think Hammett may make a big difference. I don't think I'm bullshitting at all about the previous era and I think Cooper was very good at dealing with the predominatly polynesian culture of the Hurricanes, something previous Hurricanes coaches struggled with.
I'm not saying Hammett will be better than Cooper and I'm not denigrating Cooper however I think to suggest there weren't problems with the structure of the play is burying your head in the sand.

I would agree here, our forwards have generally been underpowered and reliant upon some petty poor players or those who haven't been up to the standard consistently. That is where we have struggled and that is where I think Hammett may make a big difference. I don't think I'm bullshitting at all about the previous era and I think Cooper was very good at dealing with the predominatly polynesian culture of the Hurricanes, something previous Hurricanes coaches struggled with.
I'm not saying Hammett will be better than Cooper and I'm not denigrating Cooper however I think to suggest there weren't problems with the structure of the play is burying your head in the sand.

Some other players whose inconsistent play and lack of structure has prevented them or their teams from winning a Super Rugby title:

Bismarck du Plessis
Schalk Burger
Heinrich Brussouw
Juan Smith
Jacque Fourie
David Pocock
James O'Conner
Kurtley Beale

You aren't really adding anything to the discussion...

I don't think you really understand the discussion.

Failure to win the Super Rugby champ is not the worst mark in the world. Auckland, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Sydney, and Dunedin have all not managed it in 8 years, the amount of time Colin Cooper and the infamous ex-Hurricanes players were at the Hurricanes.

These Mark Hammett discusions all turn out exactly the same...

Whatever bro...

Correct Uncle FB. The Hurricanes were the 3rd most consistent finalists after the Crusaders and Bulls.

This BS sounds like the same hackneyed crap that every new England or Golden Lions coach comes out with, except for the part when he disrespects his predecessors and players (some now ex) achievements.

He didn't do much after Star Wars did he.

D'ya reckon he'll go to the Force next year?

Nah, the Rebels.

I think too much will be read into Hammet's performance this year. I actually expect this season to be completely derailed by injury. It's only going to take a couple of key ones like Conrad or Vito and the Canes will be struggling big time, no matter who the coach is or what the game plan is. If Hammet's good some new blood will be brought forth but it'll be NZ rugby that benefits, I don't see much joy for Canes fans TBH over the next season or two. Hammet will probably be a very good coach in 5 or 6 years, the NZRU won't have got the guy totally wrong, unfortunately I expect the Canes to pay for his learning curve at this level and won't see the benefit of it either.

Why? I can be happy with one or two players dominating the op. It is gone to be fun watching the likes of Ngatai, Barrett, Vito & Shields.

The issue is though, they could never convert that consistent attendance to semis and finals in to a prize. That suggests to me that they got there by being consistent against the lesser top middling teams but couldn't put it together again the the good-uns. Pretenders if you like, nuisance value, dangerous if you let them but, not really serious contenders.

The Canes did indeed pull a lot of games out of the fire. They also lost a shit load of games the same way. Hence their reputation for lottery rugby.

As for the Canes not having a decent 1st 5/g, what the fuck was David Hollwell, a stick of licorice? Sure, he was no Dan Carter, but only one team has ever had him.

I will say that the real argument lies somewhere in the middle. Hammett fucked up last year. He may yet fuck up this year too. However, something had to be done with the Canes, their brain farts, usually in the forwards, and propensity to get butt fucked in the forwards by the good teams led to desperate measures at time, which in turn sometimes led to spectacular wins or spectacular loses. You rarely saw them clinically take a team apart, and that has more to do with what's up front and up top than what's out the back preening.

I tend to agree, even if we aren't close to the Semis this season, if we see the players you have named and a resergance from Jason Eaton, Thrush and the rest of the tight forwards we will have an entertaining season.
It's good to see that on the bored we've only lost two Canes fans, Rugga who was a Nonu supporter more than a Canes supporter and
Bully who I reckon is really still a Canes man anyway...

I tend to agree, even if we aren't close to the Semis this season, if we see the players you have named and a resergance from Jason Eaton, Thrush and the rest of the tight forwards we will have an entertaining season.
It's good to see that on the bored we've only lost two Canes fans, Rugga who was a Nonu supporter more than a Canes supporter and
Bully who I reckon is really still a Canes man anyway...

FFS Ted, I'll start with the obvious one first - don't compare Holwell with Carter, Spencer or Merhtens. The gulf in class is enormous (and I have great respect for Holwell as a player) and Holwell wasn't really around for most of the Cooper era (2004/2006 only) instead the Canes had guys the calibre of Gopperth and Ripia. Now, if you can't see that there is a big difference between those players and the 10s I've mentioned above then I'm afraid you're a few kumara short of a hangi. The control that a Spencer, Merhtens or Carter can have on a game can't be matched by Canes journeymen.

I think that the Canes have an unfair reputation, they're expected to win stuff without the tools to do so, yet the Blues and more often the Crusaders always have the tools and often don't win ... the Crusaders haven't won in 3 years with the best squads in NZ. I say we send Alama Ieremia down there to sort out their culture.

I think you just remember the games they pull out of the fire because obviously they are more memorable, yet you forget the runs of games they have when they put good sides away. I wouldn't have traded being a Canes fan back then for anything.

As for your last comment - do you honestly think the forward strength has improved with the arrival of Hammett? It's gotten quantifiably worse - with the most consistent forward the one who got the boot first.

Despite what Steve Tew said, which the old board said, what Te Puni is now saying, the Canes didn't not win Super rugby because of their culture, if anything it made them more competitive than they had any right to be most of the times. Their have been some crazy myths popping up about the strength of the Canes and how they had such a great team. They had real class in specific areas but never had the across the board strength of the Crusaders.

I tend to agree, even if we aren't close to the Semis this season, if we see the players you have named and a resergance from Jason Eaton, Thrush and the rest of the tight forwards we will have an entertaining season.
It's good to see that on the bored we've only lost two Canes fans, Rugga who was a Nonu supporter more than a Canes supporter and
Bully who I reckon is really still a Canes man anyway...

Don't get me wrong, I am far from a Hammett supporter, but that is a far cry from a Hammett hater looking for new and creative ways to decry him.

I haven't compared them, that is the point. Hollwell was good enough, the team wasn't. We don't and probably will not have a 1st 5/8 comparable to any of those you mention, but in his pomp Hollwell was a better controller of a game than Cruden has shown thus far, albeit he is still young.

No, I don't think the forward strength had appreciably improved. Lock and loose forwards is still a worry, despite some good prospects in the loose we're still farting around with guys like Levave. We have one tried and tested prop and some good prospects. However we are still weak in the forwards, dare I say it, mainly due to attitude.

The second section I've highlighted is pretty much what I said in the quoted post. ANd yes, it's nice to win games like that, but it will rarely carry off a chamionship, also some I mentioned.