Back to 'hard yakka' in Northland

By CHRIS RATTUE

Under-pressure Northland coach Bryce Woodward says his team have gone back to tough physical work to try to break their NPC points drought.

"I do feel the pressure, but all we can do is to work hard to get ourselves out of this position," Woodward said.

"We've gone back to doing the good old hard yakka. Before that we had concentrated on skills and technical things.

Northland host Taranaki tonight in the fourth round of the NPC. Both sides suffered heavy defeats last week.

Northland went down to inconsistent Wellington and Taranaki were blown apart by a superb Waikato performance in New Plymouth.

Taranaki have the comfort of two wins already, while Northland have not registered even a bonus point.

Woodward said his side were hurt by Wellington's first two tries, when he believed their flanker Kupu Vanisi had entered a ruck illegally and was then offside.

"Those things happen and Bryce Lawrence refereed a good game, but those little things can ... make quite a difference.

"By day I work as a surveyor and the clients I meet around Whangarei who are interested in rugby are very supportive of us.

"They know that this team works as hard as it can. But I guess we are in troubled waters at the moment."

Woodward described Waikato's win over Taranaki as one of the best performances by an NPC side that he had seen, so was not reading too much into Taranaki's heavy defeat.

Taranaki, who have flanker Neil Crowley and halfback Brendan Haami back in the starters, struck travel problems yesterday. The side were split between two flights and although coach Colin Cooper and half the players made it out of New Plymouth, the rest were stumped by fog and had to travel by bus to Auckland.

* Canterbury have rolled out the heavy artillery for tomorrow's feature clash against Waikato in Hamilton.

Aaron Mauger and Greg Somerville join the starters and centre Mark Robinson comes into the reserves in a squad that includes 14 All Blacks.

Waikato coach Ian Foster has brought prop David Briggs and former national under-19 halfback Isaac Boss into the starters for Michael Collins and Rhys Duggan. Loki Crichton returns in the reserves.

Foster said: "It's all about building depth in our squad. I've been really impressed with Collins, but it's a chance for him to freshen up and get over a couple of niggling injuries.

The recall of Briggs might reflect Waikato's desire to add scrum power against an almost test-strength pack, while former All Black Duggan continues to struggle holding down the No 1 halfback position at Waikato and the Chiefs.

* North Harbour captain Mark Robinson, who was floored early in the loss to Auckland, returns to lead the side against Wellington, who hope to have Dion Waller back from injury.