We’ve bounced back from our opening loss to North Harbour with victories over Auckland away and Waikato at home and the team is improving all the time.

Our combinations gelled a lot better in the 22-16 victory over Auckland at Eden Park and the boys played extremely well in the 46-13 win over Waikato on Friday night.

It’s very pleasing to see the players improving and taking small steps each week but there is still plenty to do.

 It’s an encouraging start but there’s still a fair way to go – it’s a long season.

We won’t have Dan Carter, Kieran Read or Wyatt Crockett with us for our match on Saturday afternoon against Tasman. They’ve been called up by the All Blacks for the Bledisloe Cup match against Australia in Sydney so there are opportunities for others to come in and make their mark.

Like us, Tasman have enjoyed a pretty good start to the season – dropping their first match (against Taranaki) but bouncing back to win their second (against North Harbour) before really firing in round three (big win over Counties-Manukau).

They will be excited about making the trip south to play on AMI Stadium – some of the team were members of the Crusaders in this season’s Rebel Sport Super 14 and are used to playing there.

It’s sure to be an open, entertaining match which should be helped by the early kick-off time: 4.30pm.

Hope to see you at the match!

Rob Penney
Canterbury Head Coach.

From my perspective it was great to see us create and finish off so many opportunities against Waikato.

We won a lot of front-foot ball, which is important, but the guys also showed great awareness and skills to create and complete chances.

Halfback Tyson Keats barged over from close in, but the tries to Tim Bateman, Colin Slade, Wyatt Crockett and Adam Whitelock came about through penetrating their defensive line. That came about through good passing which created space.

I’ll obviously be hoping that continues. And with the players at our disposal, I’m sure it will.

Tabai Matson
Canterbury Assistant Coach