Otago coach Cory Brown said the side did well to come back and gain a bonus point from the game in Christchurch but was not at its best on Saturday.
"We made a couple of errors and that gave them a roll-on and they are a hard team to stop if you do that," he said.
"We defended well in patches and made them work hard in the first half but they finally got over the line. They had a lot of ball, it was probably 60-40 and it is tough when you are trying to turn it around."
But Brown paid tribute to the players for coming back well in the second half as after 50 minutes of the game, the side was down by 25 points and the floodgates were threatening to open.
"In that second half the guys who came off the bench really put their hands up and helped us get the bonus point. The set piece matched up against Canterbury.
"They’re a good team, there is no doubt about that, but we came back well. Apart from when they lost last week, Canterbury has not conceded a bonus point so it was good to get that."
Flanker James Lentjes and second five-eighth Sio Tomkinson clashed heads in the first half and Lentjes had a badly bruised eye.
He was forced to leave the field as he had difficulty with the amount of bruising around his eye.
He was not concussed.
Tomkinson was fine but the news is not so good for tighthead prop Hisa Sasagi.
The big man also got into a nasty head clash in the second half and was forced off the field.
He had nasty bruising around his face and there are fears he has fractured an eye socket.
If that is the case he would be out for the season.
Otago travelled back from Christchurch straight after the game and was now looking at taking on Auckland in the City of Sails on Saturday night.
Otago is on 29 points on the Mitre 10 Cup championship ladder and Wellington is second on 23 points, although Otago has played one more match.
Brown said Auckland was another tough opponent with plenty of talent.
"They’ve got a lot of big ball runners and a lot of X-factor. So that is what we have to stop again. They’re perhaps not as clinical as Canterbury but are a very dangerous team."
Otago has to simply make fewer mistakes than it did on Saturday and stop the Auckland ball runners before they get up a head of steam.
It then faces Counties-Manukau — another side full of big ball-runners — in Dunedin on October 8.
In other games over the weekend, Taranaki beat Manawatu 31-19 in the wet in New Plymouth, while Tasman edged Hawke’s Bay 36-29 in Napier.
With the loss, Hawke’s Bay appears headed back to the ChampionshipIn yesterday’s games, Auckland downed Bay of Plenty 44-38 and North Harbour defeated Southland 35-14.