We’ve begun the season with a narrow loss to North Harbour but there were plenty of good signs there for myself and Tabai and the team will be better for the match.

Saturday night’s game at Albany was the first time we have put that combination on the park and you could see with the errors the players were making that they were a bit rusty.

On the plus side, Dan Carter got through 64 minutes and played very well despite playing only one game for his club Southbridge as preparation and hooker Ti’i Paulo and wing James Paterson both played the whole 80 minutes – their first games at this level since 2008.

Our defence also stood up pretty well but now we have to improve our combinations and finish things off.

Canterbury made most of the play on Saturday night but unfortunately we allowed Harbour to feed off our mistakes.

We got punished by the referee a lot too and we’ll have to cut down on those penalties.

Now we’re focusing on Auckland at Eden Park on Saturday. We’ve enjoyed some great battles against Auckland over the years and I’m expecting no different on Saturday.

They came up against an in-form Hawkes Bay at the weekend and came off second best so I’m sure they’ll come out firing against us.

But we’ve got a few points to prove as well. We’ll be looking to lift our standards across the park and improve our performances in all facets.

It should be an interesting match!

Rob Penney,
Canterbury Head Coach

It’ll be great going to back to Eden Park in the weekend but I want to head back down to Canterbury afterwards with a win.

I haven’t been to Eden Park since the 1998 Rebel Sport Super 12 final which the Crusaders won against the Blues so I obviously have some very happy memories of the place.

Saturday night at North Harbour Stadium was a tough night at the office for the backs. The conditions were difficult – it had rained heavily in the lead up to kick-off – which meant we struggled to get things going.

It’s always disappointing to lose but we have to take what we can from the match.

For me, the defence was pretty good and we certainly had plenty of ball to play with.

Now we have to get a bit of continuity going. I know we have the players to do it – the quality in the side is amazing.

We’ll have plenty to work on during the week but we’ll be looking forward to putting things right as soon as we can.

Tabai Matson,
Canterbury Assistant Coach