The Southland B side went down to a strong Canterbury Maori side on Saturday.

Southland B fielded one of their strongest sides to date and with the inclusion of 3 signed Stags players were hoping to reverse last year’s result.

Canterbury Maori come out firing and had the better of the opening stanza and shot out to a 14-0 lead.Once the Southland boys got into their work by gaining some procession they hit back with some quality tries of their own.Tries to Conrad Quick and Fale losefa brought the deficit back to 2 points.

Southland had the upper hand at scrum time and put plenty of pressure on in this area , unfortunately the referee saw it differently and awarded Canterbury a couple of crucial penalties which they capitalised on.

Southland were finishing strong and scored another two well-constructed tries through Alatini Valro and Junior Nguluafe.Southland were then back hot on attack and where frustratingly penalised around the ruck area again and Canterbury capitalized and scored at the other end to stretch it out to a 28-36 win.

The boys turned up with the riight attitude and intent but just panicked at times which cost us in the end.I am sure if we just do the simple things rite this weekend the rest will come this weekend against Tasman.  

Jordan and Sam Stewart had strong games and Ben Fotherington was massive injection and had a huge work rate.Tupou Sopoaga was impressive with ball in hand at number 8 and got through the full 80. Half Back Hayden Edgley and Fale losefa were the pick of the backs.