Taniwha ready to confront physical Auckland

Northland are expecting Auckland to throw everything at them in the final hit out before the ITM Cup kicks off next week.
But Taniwha coach Adriaan Ferris is adamant the team gathered will reply by throwing it right back at their opposition.
"I don't think it will be Auckland's strongest line-up but they have too many guys available to them to not play well. Their style is typically very physical and they will throw everything at us," Ferris said.
Northland were put through their paces at training this week following a 24-28 loss to North Harbour at Wellsford last Saturday.
While not the most polished of games, Ferris saw positives to take out of their initial hit-out ahead of their short and sharp ITM Cup campaign, which starts with a match against Tasman at Toll Stadium on July 16.
"While we lost, we created four tries which were part of our systems we had in place, and we were happy about that. We need to tidy up our defence a bit, but the tries North Harbour scored were one-off individual tries and we're not too concerned about that. We're more concerned with getting our systems and structures in place, and working well. The more game time the guys have together the better they will get," the coach said.
While reluctant to call it "rotation", due to the short turnaround between ITM Cup games, Ferris will be using the full squad - something his troops would start to get used to this weekend, with many changes having been made for the Auckland clash.
Although still missing Blues players Rene Ranger, regular skipper Jared Payne, and Lachie Munro, who are sitting out a compulsory rest period after losing to the Reds in the Super Rugby semifinal last weekend, Northland will front up with a near full-strength squad at Pakuranga's Bell Park tomorrow.
"Last week, we were just trying to get through our first pre-season match as we had a few guys out with niggly injuries, but we have Rhyan Caine back at 9, Ash Moeke at 10 and Mark Burman and Marty Veale in the second row which will add more impact and physicality to our pack," he said.
Northland: 1 Justin Davies, 2 Ross Wright, 3 Scott Vessey, 4 Mark Burman, 5 Marty Veale, 6 Dan Faleafa, 7 Joel McKenty, 8 Cam Eyre, 9 Rhyan Caine, 10 Ash Moeke, 11 Whiria Meltzer, 12 Aaron Bancroft (c), 13 Derek Carpenter, 14 Bryce Heem, 15 Brad Linklater. Reserves: 16 Kalem Chan-Boon, 17 Aterea Davis, 18 Bryce Williams, 19 Dan Pryor, 20 Cam Goodhue, 21 Wayne Ngaluafe, 22 Warren Dunn, 23 Simon Munro, 24 Brendan Ward, 25 Jeff Kalemani.