Stags' hunt voice of calm

Alan Hunt is in his element on the sun-drenched deck of his Taradale home.
Family time is often non-negotiable for the Central Districts Stags coach but two days before the match against the Otago Volts in Napier the 51-year-old makes an exception to talk shop.
The Aucklander isn't of the Jonathon Gould or Shawn Dennis ilk, coaches who have no qualms about venting their spleen if the troops are losing the plot on the football field and basketball court, respectively.
"I don't get too fired up. I'm reasonably analytical and have grasp on the handle of how cricket should be played and how we can win," says Dunedin-born Hunt as wife Maureen clinically prepares the family dinner.
"Being calm to make sure you don't overreact is important. Cricket is a game where you're going to have bad days so it's rare for me to fly off the handle."
Adopting a dictatorial stance, especially when there's a big group, isn't his style.
Open to advice, he doesn't have any qualms about players getting things off their chest.
Indubitably he doesn't proclaim to have all the answers.
Nevertheless, his passive demeanour should not be mistaken for someone who isn't assertive.
"It's a bit like the two selectors [Scott Briasco and Gary Cunningham] and I chew things but, ultimately, I'm the guy with whom the buck stops," he says.
"We've got to pick a team that's got to be successful and I've got to make that decision with the support of the other selectors but it's my backside on the line," he says, outlining he and the captain, based on the playing conditions, have the final say on the playing XI.
Having played 67 first-class games for the Auckland Aces, Hunt finished to the tune of a benefit season in 1992-93, which was "a nice acknowledgement of a reasonably low-profile non-New Zealand player".
The former right-hand batsman believes a playing background is a primary prerequisite to a coaching career but people management to identifying technical/mental strengths and weaknesses of players and working with them to improve are essential components. With the three formats of Twenty20, one-dayers and four-day Plunket Shield, he believes coaches need to be adaptable and accessible.
The dynamic T20 is the toughest.
"Before you know you're 10 overs into the game and before you know it you're either right into the game or right out of it.
"The biggest challenge for me is learning the game," he says, seeing some benefits in shot improvisation and explosive fielding, albeit not the be-all and end-all of cricket.
It only becomes detrimental, he reckons, if players can't adapt to the demands of the longer format.
"The Champions League [in South Africa in September] was my first official role and I was out of my depth and I'd readily admit that," says the ex-offspinner who found himself in the shadow of John Bracewell and Deepak Patel.
The New Zealand under-23 rep from 1980-81 rubbed shoulders with McLean Park head groundsman Phil Stoyanoff and also captained the New Zealand Emerging team against Sri Lanka in 1991-92 in Palmerston North.
"I was more like a submerging player at the end of his career so they asked me to lead a group of younger players," he says with a grin.
The son of retired supermarket chain manager Ian and Margaret Hunt, who live in Waiuku, south of Auckland, first played cricket when he was 5 years old in Wellington.
However, he didn't catch the bug until his father got a transfer to Sydney with Woolworths.
"My Dad was no great cricketer but he had some idea of how to hold a bat so I sort of liked it," says Hunt, who from standard four went on to make the Auckland Primary Schools and age-group teams.
For the then youngster who looked up to former international-cum-selector Glenn Taylor as a hero, Hunt's development in a cricket era of trail and error was tough.
"It would have been nice to have the support process the players have today when I was finding my feet in first-class cricket."
In the 1980s he went to the United Kingdom for a couple of years but a career wasn't an option then.
"I continued to work in the financial industry and that was my career," Hunt says, a former bank employee who still has a mortgage-broking business in Auckland.
After coming perilously close to coaching the Aces a couple of times, Hunt, in some respects, thought first-class coaching had passed him by.
He saw the CD stint as a "final last hoorah" at a time when the financial game was becoming testing. He still has strong ties with the Howick Pakuranga Cricket Club in Auckland, where CD fast bowler Mitchell McClenaghan hails from.
With Hunt's first of the two-year contract coming up for appraisal at the end of May, he is banking on his bosses recognising his input to extend his contract for more than a two-year term.
With the Stags in a transition phase, he anticipates quality senior players such as Mathew Sinclair and Peter Ingram will retire while Jamie How and Tim Weston will soldier on for a few more seasons as they try to blood new players.
Finding contracts for youngsters, Hunt says, is imperative as other major associations will be "sniffing around" for talent.
He believes the Bay is blessed with ideal playing conditions, an indoor centre and the added incentive of the coach based here.