Canterbury B demolished Wellington B with a second-half blitz of 36 unanswered points to progress to a final showdown with North Harbour at Albany on Saturday afternoon.

Canterbury B were trailing 18-31 with 30 minutes remaining, but upped the intensity and ran out 54-31 winners in Wellington on Friday night.

Assistant coach Wayne Burleigh, whose team did not play Wellington in the round-robin due to the split competition, said: "We went into the game with good confidence, although Wellington hadn't been beaten at that stage.

"We made a few errors in the first part of the game and coming off a bye the week before might not have been ideal but we always felt in control of the game despite being behind by so many points at one stage. We were very pleased to get the win."

The Bs, second on the points table after the round robin, beat No1 team Harbour (coached by former All Blacks Frano Botica and Blair Larsen) 8-5 earlier in the season. "To be fair, it was the first game of the season and both teams have improved since then," added Burleigh.

It is the third time in three years that the Bs have made the final. Last year they lost to Taranaki in New Plymouth 18-15 and the year before they lost to Otago in Dunedin 13-12.

"There are a few guys in the squad with a few points to prove. Nine were in last year's squad and we have three from the previous year so we want to do the job this time," said Burleigh.

The Canterbury A team will hope the Wellington result is a good omen, as they play the Lions in the final of the Air New Zealand Cup in the capital on Saturday night.

The As and Bs will hope to go one better than the Canterbury women's team, who did very well in making the final against Auckland at Eden Park, only to lose narrowly to a team full of Black Ferns.