Forwards focus on sharp skills in lineout

Northland's forwards spent yesterday morning  sharpening their lineout skills ahead of their first home match of the ITM Cup competition at Toll Stadium
on Sunday.
Lock Pat O'Connor said the lineouts and kick-off receipts were one of the more obvious failures during the side's 26-19 win against Taranaki last Thursday but the overall performance was far from perfect and needed work.
"I know we've got a good lineout. We didn't perform at our best the other night but we'll get better and introduce some new stuff and keep chipping away at the old stuff too so when we click we'll be fine," he said.
O'Connor said the pressure of playing opening-round matches showed in other areas of the game that weren't always so apparent.
"There are still quite a few new guys in our squad and that showed the other night. It was also the first time some of them had played at that level so that was daunting. Now that's out of the way the next time they play they can relax a little bit and that should make all the difference and help us click."
Taniwha forwards coach Blair Larsen said the pack's effort in their opening game - against a highly rated Taranaki pack - wasn't too bad.
"Our recycle rate and the way the ball was going back was really good, but the lineout was a let-down - if you look at our pre-season it was operating at around 80 per cent against some good teams - so hopefully it was just one of those games for us and we are certainly working on it this week and will go through every process possible to try and fix it," Larsen said.
O'Connor said the team showed real heart last Thursday and a big desire to win had helped them home against Taranaki.
"The best thing about our performance the other night was the commitment from all our blokes, particularly in the second half and like I said, it wasn't perfect but we were still able to scrap out a win," he said. "That was the difference between Thursday night's game and all of last year was that we were losing games like that last year but this time we won."
The scrum seems to have made some headway since last season and reacted well under a lot of pressure in the second half and Larsen believed as a starting point for the season it was also pretty good - particularly with some new personnel on board.
North Harbour lost their "battle of the bridge" with Auckland on Sunday but will pose a fresh set of problems for Northland. O'Connor said the important thing was to keep improving and keeping sight of the big picture for Northland.
"It's a new stadium, the first game at home in a new season and we're coming off the back of a win, so the boys will be keen. We've beaten Harbour already this season [in a pre-season match at Kaitaia] so we'll have a little bit of confidence there but we know Harbour will be up for a scrap."