Steamers head coach Kevin Schuler was far from despondent after the game but was left to rue that first-half points scoring spree by the Makos.
"Both teams started well but it was just that bang, bang, bang on the back of some poor kick chase really," he said.
"They moved the ball and our defence out in the channels wasn't good enough ... just one-off tackling that we have to make.
"The other thing overall was our set piece let us down too. We gave them three or four tries directly off set piece, which is just not good enough. That is what you train for so we are going to have to train again.
"We had our moments on attack and we did some very good defence through the middle of the park in the second half, and stopped them going through completely. Our boys will be hurting and it is just the little bit of detail around our defence. If we can shore that up we can enjoy more attacking rugby because we will get the ball back as well."
The Steamers next game is against Taranaki in New Plymouth next Sunday.
Meanwhile, after being blown off the park 48-9 by Canterbury last week, Paul Feeney's Auckland side bounced back in emphatic fashion as they brushed aside an ill-disciplined Manawatu outfit 35-7 in Palmerston North yesterday.
Manawatu aren't the worst side in the competition and even scored a 28-23 win over Northland last Sunday but they fired few shots against an Auckland team who had a strong dose of Super Rugby players in their ranks.
The difference was exemplified by the depth at first-five, where Auckland had the Wales-bound Gareth Anscombe run the cutter in the early stages before New Zealand under-20s skipper Simon Hickey finished the job.
Manawatu spent the afternoon on the wrong side of the whistle and had two players sent to the sin bin.Additional reporting APNZ
