The Otago Spirit has delivered a competitive showing but in the end it was not quite enough.
It was beaten by 20-7 by Canterbury in its Farah Palmer Cup opener in Christchurch yesterday.
Playing into the wind, the Spirit put the hosts under pressure in the first half and trailed just 3-0 at the break.
However, Canterbury began to gain dominance in the second half and ran in three tries to emerge victors.
Spirit coach Kane Jury was happy with the performance against one of the premiership division’s top teams.
"I think coming into the game we had some big expectations in terms of what we’d learnt and we had to now put it into play.
"What I said to the girls after the game was that it was awesome to see some really good phases put together on attack and then defensively too, putting pressure on them as well.
"You can only do so much on the training paddock, but to be able to play against a quality team like this — and they haven’t changed a huge amount from the semifinal last year — to put them under pressure and have us in the game at halftime was pleasing."
He said the defence showed good line speed and tackled well, while on attack it showed its ability to string phases together.However, it was unable to turn that into points. The team was unable to play in the right areas of the field when it had possession.
In the second half, Canterbury began to play with more width and stretch the Otago defence.
That put it under more pressure, and Jury said at times the line did not come up together, which exposed the Spirit and put it under pressure.
Alongside that, the Canterbury set piece began to gain dominance.
All that paved the way for tries to hooker Rebecca Todd, No8 Nicole Purdom and replacement hooker Nina Poletti.
Jury said those came because Canterbury took advantage of Otago not quite clearing its line well enough.
Otago was able to hit back late, when a break and offload from fullback Sheree Hume sent youngster Cheyenne Cunningham in to score.
Jury said the inexperienced tight five had done well and he thought the loose forward trio had been dominant.
They had turned over a lot of ball, while also being outstanding in support play.He felt there were encouraging signs going forward, as the side looked ahead to next weekend’s game against Tasman.
"There’s some really good snapshots of how we can play the game and how we can dominate the game," Jury said.
"I would be a bit worried if I felt like they didn’t know what they were doing, that they weren’t sure about how we were going to play or what they were supposed to do on the field.
"But what we saw [yesterday] was that they know what they’ve got to do, it’s just being a bit more accurate with their execution."
Canterbury v Otago
The scores
Canterbury 20
Rebecca Todd, Nicole Purdom, Nina Poletti tries; Charntay Poko con, pen)
Otago 7
Cheyenne Cunningham try, Sheree Hume con Halftime: 3-0