Hurricanes' training visit was week's best-kept secret

Captain Conrad Smith was absent when the Hurricanes popped in to Palmerston North to train yesterday – and so was the crowd.

Smith is still on extended All Blacks leave overseas and coach Mark Hammett expects him back on February 6.

There were still All Blacks like Victor Vito and Cory Jane prancing about the Palmerston North Boys' High School field. As Manawatu's geographical Super Rugby franchise, that should have been enough in the school holidays to attract a better crowd than the one which peaked at no more than 25.

The players looked bemused, training heartily in a vacuum after a two-hour bus trip from a stormy Wellington. The southerly change which came through produced the coldest day of the summer. The temperature plunged to 10 degrees Celsius at one stage and that did not help lure fans to watch the team, which no longer has a single Manawatu player.

If anything was at fault it was the Hurricanes' marketing. It was non-existent, apparently due to empty coffers, but surely a few phone calls or emails to the Manawatu Standard from the franchise would not have broken the bank.

When a team goes to the effort of flying the flag of diplomacy in the region's outer reaches it has to be publicised. We spotted mention of it only when browsing the Manawatu Rugby Union website.

That aside, the players did not hold back in training. The only others absent were backs Tim Bateman and Tusi Pisi who are both still in Japan, with Bateman due back soon because his team there is not prospering.

Coach Mark Hammett looked happy in his work and bearing the confidence of his troops.

"It's that first year," he said. "Now there's an opportunity for people to stake claims. There's no doubt in this group there are future All Blacks."

Players like loose forward Brad Shields, Beauden Barrett and TJ Perenara might one day get there.

The 2012 Hurricanes will start as one of the Super Rugby underdogs, although Hammett said the starting XV should have a fair vein of experience. They had five weeks of hard labour before Christmas and have had five weeks since.

"They are very fit and very hard-working," Hammett said. "They are at the point where they are sick of training and want to be playing."

Next Saturday they have their first pre-season game, against the Blues at Whangarei, then the Crusaders hit-out at Mangatainoka on February 11, followed by the Chiefs at Taupo. And Hammett will not be too worried about having his first three games well away from home, two in South Africa and one in Perth, before the home-town pressure comes on against Dave Rennie's Chiefs at Wellington.

And, maybe, when the Hurricanes come back next year, they will carry more green genes than just expatriates Andre Taylor and Jason Eaton.

- © Fairfax NZ News