Tasman 25
Canterbury 17
It's not often you'll find yourself saying how poor Canterbury played in a Mitre 10 Cup fixture, but in an opening loss to Tasman on Friday night they sure didn't impress.
Falling off tackles, squandering possession and turning the ball over, it's hard to imagine Canterbury won the fixture 39-0 to start the 2017 season.
And Canterbury never really looked like they were in the contest. Tasman controlled the football for the majority of the first 20 minutes – building a 10-0 lead in that time, and they did that despite bombing a number of promising attacks inside the Canterbury 22.
While Canterbury were unable to launch any sort of promising attack, Tasman were the opposite. With the vast majority of the possession and most of the territory – including 81 per cent in the first half - Tasman took their opportunities, and sent a warning shot to the rest of the competition.