Brace of losses leave room for improvement

Desperation. It's a word Southland coach Phil Young has tried to avoid this week, but it hasn't been far from his lips since the loss to Bay of Plenty in Tauranga last Saturday.

Southland and Taranaki go into tomorrow's first division game at Rugby Park in Invercargill smarting from embarrassing losses last weekend.

Southland's loss to the Bay will have a huge bearing on how this season is assessed, and Taranaki were lucky to get second in what was a virtual Hurricanes Super 12 trial against Wellington.

Young said his youthful team's confidence had taken a battering.

"The first five games we played against the franchise sides, we believed in ourselves and the guys played well. But we've only won one game and we've made that quite clear, we just dropped our guard.

"It was a big challenge to get them back up. We had a good debrief on Tuesday and put things in order. The guys have responded well and worked really hard this week. They want to do well for themselves and their mates."

A win would go a long way to saving Southland from an agonising last fortnight of NPC rugby.

Taranaki coach Colin Cooper said his team could not afford to dwell on the 46-17 loss to Wellington. The amber and blacks are lurking with intent just outside the top four and need the points in Invercargill with only games against Canterbury and North Harbour remaining.

Taranaki and Southland were similar unions and the two teams had a great deal of respect for each other, Cooper said.

"We know they are going to be tough, hard at home. Our focus is on what we need to do to keep to our game plan."

Wellington exposed an underbelly rarely seen from teams coming out of the cow country and there are reputations which need mending.

Teams:

Southland: Richard Newman, Bryan Milne, Hayden Martine, Seremai Bai, Roy Hawker, Ashley Barron, Jimmy Cowan or Jason Harrison, Paul Miller, Ben Herring, Hale T-Pole, Daniel Quate, Steve Jackson (capt), Clarke Dermody, Corey Flynn, Keith Cameron. Res: Brett Roberts, David Hall, Andrew McClintock, Iona Sipa, Justin Matheson, Harrison or Jamie Whelan, Norman Ligairi, Anthony Lafaiali'i.

Taranaki: Daryl Lilley, Shayne Austin, James Kerr, Matt Harvey, Chris Woods, Mark Urwin, Brendan Haami, Chris Masoe, Neil Crowley, Brent Thompson, Reece Robinson, Paul Tito (capt), GordonSlater, Andrew Hore, Tony Penn. Res: Daniel Smith, Tama Tuirirangi, Scott Breman, Corey Holdaway, Denning Tyrell, Mepi Faoagali, Johnny Stewart.

Ref: Steve Walsh (North Harbour). Kickoff: 2.35pm tomorrow.

- NZPA