The Otago halfback has spent the past five years training alongside, and often coming on for, the star No 9 in the Highlanders.
Today they will have a rare encounter as opponents.
Smith’s involvement with the All Blacks has limited his provincial rugby to a handful of games over the past decade.
The pair had their sole previous match-up a year ago, when the All Blacks played the early rounds of the NPC.
This year Smith has opted to remain in New Zealand for the birth of his child, expected in November, rather than tour with the national side.
It adds a significant weapon to Manawatu, which can count one of the world’s best among its ranks.
That provides a challenge Hammington is looking forward to, and if anyone knows how to contain the All Black star it is surely him.
‘‘It’s always like that with changing from Super into NPC,’’ Hammington (31), who is a former Manawatu player, said.
‘‘You come up against some guys you know pretty well and spend a bit of time with.
‘‘It’ll be awesome, to be fair. He’s bloody competitive and I’m sure we’ll see that.’’
There had not been any banter between the pair yet and Hammington was quick to play down the match-up.
He said Manawatu boasted plenty of threats and, while Smith was part of that, containing the danger right across the park would be key.
Manawatu was coming off a useful win over Northland in its first game back after the lockdown break.
Otago has not played for seven weeks, although Hammington hoped the opportunity to work on some extra details would prove beneficial.
‘‘They play a pretty exciting brand of footy.
‘‘They like to move the ball a lot, they’ve got some pretty dynamic loosies who have been carrying well and their backline’s got threats across the park.
‘‘They’ll look to play pretty expansively and hopefully our defence after a couple of weeks of getting the details right will stand up to the challenge.’’
Hammington said Otago had been training hard since its 34-10 loss to Hawke’s Bay in its last outing.
He admitted that felt a long time ago, though.
That left the team ‘‘pretty pumped’’ to get back on the field and he was confident the team had made use of its extra time off.
‘‘It’s been good actually. It’s a good time to grow our game. Other teams are straight back into a performance week.
‘‘We’ve had a couple of extra weeks to get a bit more detail into how we want to play and hopefully improve in that time.
‘‘Not only physically with our fitness, but grow our game, grow our shape, grow our understanding.’’
Today’s game kicks off at 4.35pm.
