The team will play King Country in the Lochore Cup final in Te Kuiti on Saturday, having upset Mid Canterbury 36-24 in the semifinal.
''Considering the week before we were nothing short of terrible against West Coast, it was a pretty good turnaround,'' Casey (22) said.
''We knew we had to [be better], but we got the job done, so the boys are pretty happy. Hopefully, we can do it again this weekend.''
While excited for the final, the Taieri first five-eighth admitted he was hanging out for the break. Having played every game in last year's club season, spent nine months playing in Spain and taken the field straight away upon his return to New Zealand, it had been a full-on period.
During that time he had nursed an ankle injury, while recently picking up a groin niggle that had prevented him from goal kicking the past two weeks.
Despite that, he was enjoying his time playing for North Otago. He was living in Twizel, working at his parents' Four Square store, although was trying to find a job in Dunedin.
''I've been travelling down to training. It's about an hour and a-half there and an hour and a-half back. So that's been different. I'm not used to travelling that far for training.
''I think the top four teams in Dunedin [club rugby] would probably win the Heartland competition, it's about that middle area of the Dunedin premier competition.
''There's different levels of skill. There's guys that just play club rugby locally and then there's loan players that have been in Mitre 10 Cup setups.''
It was similar to to the set-up in Spain, where he played for Santboiana in the country's top league.
''It was awesome; probably the best nine months of my life.
''Rugby-wise it's not fantastic. It isn't the sort of place I'd go back to improve my rugby. I'd go back to live, because it's an awesome lifestyle.
''Most teams would be similar to the Heartland competition. But the top three or four teams are pretty much fully professional, so there's a lot of foreigners over there, a lot of Argentinians, French and quite a few Kiwis as well.
''So the team that has the most imports tends to do the best.
''Those teams, they're pretty good. They'd be pretty competitive in Dunedin,'' he said.
He tore an ankle ligament in his final game in Spain, before returning and playing through the injury for Taieri. While it had healed in the gap between the club and Heartland seasons, he was still not 100% and was looking forward to summer to get back into top shape.
Prop Ralph Darling and utility back Lemi Masoe are the two North Otago representatives in the New Zealand Heartland XV named yesterday for a November tour.
The squad will play three games next month, starting with a match against New Zealand Marist in Auckland on November 5. The team will then head to Fiji for games against Nadi on November 8 and Nadroga on November 11.
South Canterbury's Barry Matthews and Poverty Bay's Mutu Ngarimu will coach the team.
