After three weeks of defending the Ranfurly Shield against Otago, Taranaki and Northland, we’re on the road to play Counties-Manukau.

In some ways the pressure is off a little because we don’t have to play for the Shield, but we know we’ll have to maintain our standards against a Counties team which is always tough to play at home.

In this competition you only have to be off mentally slightly to struggle in a match. You can see that in our first-up game against North Harbour and also Bay of Plenty at Mt Maunganui where we were beaten.

Last weekend against Northland we weren’t at our best at the breakdown and we also want to improve our defence.

We’ve got a large squad full of talented players and we’ll need all of them because this is a very long season. Never before have all 14 teams in the Air New Zealand Cup competition played each other so keeping everyone fresh is a key goal for us.

Last week it was great to have a 2.35pm kick-off against Northland and very pleasing to see the crowd on the field afterwards meeting the players. We hope that this can continue.

Our next home game at AMI Stadium and Ranfurly Shield defence is next Friday night against Manawatu. We’ll have a few of our All Blacks back for that one – watch this space to see who is coming back.

Thanks for your support.

Rob Penney, Canterbury Head Coach