Canes look to get physical

Do you remember Lima Sopoaga’s audacious overhead kick against the Hurricanes at Westpac Stadium last season?

In case you don’t, the Highlanders No 10 received the ball just inside his own half, turned his back to the defence and sent a kick over his head and into the arms of a charging Matt Faddes.

And while it didn’t result in a try as the Highlanders conceded possession closes to the Hurricanes’ tryline shortly after, it typified the at times unpredictable nature of how the southern men play.

At the time, Sopoaga said it was a special move from thenhighlanders assistant coach Tony Brown, who is now the head coach.

One man who hasn’t forgotten the move is Hurricanes loose forward Brad Shields.

‘‘We’re not really sure what they’ll do. Last year, Lima did that behind the head kick, I know he’s not playing [this weekend], but that’s Tony Brown. They can show up with anything, so we’ve got to

be prepared for anything.’’

Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said his hunch was that even without the injured Sopoaga, the Highlanders would utilise Fletcher Smith at first-five to kick a lot at Westpac Stadium on Saturday.

Shields said they would be prepared for that, but had learnt the lesson of over-preparing in the 26-18 to the Chiefs last weekend.

‘‘Yeah the high ball, we’ll look to diffuse that, but we’re just going to focus on us really.

‘‘I think that’s where we tripped up a bit last week, maybe putting a bit too much emphasis on the opposition and not enough on us and what we do well.

Physicality will be important, with Shields saying that was an area lacking last weekend.

Not throwing the ball around willy-nilly is another.

‘‘The main thing is to earn the right to play,’’ Shields said.

‘‘We obviously threw the ball around in the first couple of weeks and didn’t do that in the weekend previous, we just need to work hard first and earn that space.

‘‘We’ve been around long enough to know what to expect and I don’t think we turned up last Friday and put our best foot forward. We want to make amends for that.’’