A company may not play any resource during the site phase until they have faced all automatic-attacks, unless that resource directly affects an automatic-attack.
Removing an automatic-attack does not directly affect it, although cancelling does.

The only resources you may play against automatic-attacks are ones that cancel the
attack, cancel a strike, or would be otherwise playable during the strike sequence.

If a card specifies that more than one action occurs when the card is itself resolved in a chain of effects, all of these actions are to be resolved in the card’s chain of effects uninterrupted and in the order listed on the card. No actions may be declared to occur between these multiple actions. The actions listed on the card are considered to have been declared in the reverse order as they are printed. As an exception, in one of the effects of a card is an attack, cards may be played that cancel the attack, cancel one of the strikes, or that otherwise are playable during the strike sequence.

[crf.html#new @] Between an attacks declaration and the assigning of the strikes there is time for multiple chains of effect. Thus you could for example make two attempts to cancel the attack or your opponent could use Hoarmurath for an extra strike, recycle him and add another strike. [CoE] [crf.html#non-rev %]