Northland B's result against Waikato mirrored their senior team's performance on Saturday after they let their foot off Waikato's throat midway through the second spell, surrendering their lead and losing the game 17-32.
After an even first spell, Northland trailed 10-13 at the break and got off to a great startto the second spell with a Matt Wright try. With the conversion they led 17-13 going into the final quarter.
Waikato then piled the pressure on and scored two tries in succession in the 63rd and 69th minute, which saw Northland trail 25-17, forcing them to chance their arm in the final 10 minutes and cough up another try with five minutes to go.
Taniwha assistant coach Pat Stevens said although they ended up on the wrong side of the ledger, they were still in the quarter-finals of the Northern Region Development Competition, but the loss means they blew their chance of a home game next weekend.
Stevens said the side were far from despondent about the way they had played but would work to cut down on their second half defensive lapses, which probably cost them the game, in practice this week.
"We had a couple of little lapses in defence around the ruck and quick phase play that cost us, we might have been a little bit slow off our line but it is nothing insurmountable for next week - that's for sure," he said.
The strength of the respective teams often fluctuates with how many professional players are cut loose from the ITM Cup team always a point of difference. On Saturday Waikato had five current or former professional players in their team.
"We could have beaten them but we just failed to react fast enough to shut down their opportunities a couple of times but we still think we've got the game to take it to these other teams and we're already looking forward to next week."
The team's opponents with be either Counties-Manukau or North Harbour - both teams Northland have beaten during the campaign to date, giving them extra confidence going into this Saturday's knock-out quarter-final.
Northland 17 (Ualosi Kalea, Matt Wright tries; Reece Hamon pen, con, Mike Wirangi con) Waikato 32 (Joe Reynolds, Matt Kenny, Clancy Edwardson, Rory Grice, Mark Murray; Reynolds pen, 2 con)
