The pair were invalided out of the game against the Brumbies on Saturday evening and both appeared bound for stints on the sidelines, de Groot having failed an HIA after eight minutes and Hicks nursing a painful wrist.
While both situations have not been resolved, there are promising developments.
Star prop de Groot is being monitored and following return-to-play protocols following the accidental knee to the head he copped in a tackle against the Brumbies.
‘‘Today looked promising for Ethan,’’ Highlanders defensive coach Dave Dillon said yesterday.
‘‘It’s [a matter of] how he will present tomorrow and how it progresses from there.’’
There was hope de Groot would be fine to play the Chiefs in Hamilton this weekend but there were no risks taken with head knocks, Dillon said.
The Highlanders acknowledged the blow he sustained was completely accidental.
‘‘You look at the footage and it was nothing malicious at all.
‘‘It was just one of those things where he got the knock in a certain spot, and that was that.’’
Hicks, doing a fine job at lock with Mitch Dunshea and Will Tucker sidelined till next month, has been cleared of a break and is now focused on recovering from his wrist sprain.
‘‘That’s great for Hicksy,’’ Dillon said.
‘‘He’s still in a bit of pain but he did some running today and we’ll just see how he presents moving forward.’’
The Highlanders had reviewed the 27-21 loss to the Brumbies and landed on the popular assessment that the game was there to be won, Dillon said.
‘‘And we didn’t win it, so obviously we look at the reasons why, and address those.
‘‘But we need to get back into it pretty quickly because we’ve now got the Chiefs up in Hamilton.
‘‘It’s another New Zealand side, and they’re a very good side who are really well-coached.
‘‘We’re excited about it and looking forward to the contest.’’ The Highlanders have had to get through a lot of defensive work this season.
They have made 727 tackles
— averaging 182 a game — while their opponents have averaged 111 against them.
Highlanders captain Billy Harmon’s 71 tackles are second only to Crusaders machine Tom Christie.
While the Highlanders cannot be faulted for workrate, and they actually lead Super Rugby in tackles won (89.2%), there was still work to do, Dillon said. ‘‘It’s nice to have that stat, but it’s what we’re doing within that stat that counts.
‘‘There are some things we can better at, because that’s just tackle completion. We’ve unpicked that a little bit this morning and looked at areas we can be better.
‘‘Ultimately, you want to defend to get the ball back to score points. I think we can be a little bit more efficient with some of our movement and then some of our tackle execution.
‘‘You don’t want to be tackling all the time. You want to get on the other side of the ball.’’ hayden.meikle@odt.co.nz
