Auckland kicked off their Mitre 10 Cup campaign with a heavy 43-3 defeat at the hands of defending champions Canterbury in Christchurch this evening.

Nothing went the way of the visiting team, conceding too many penalties and guilty of too many handling errors.

Pryor Collier looked lively on debut and Liaki Moli, in his 50th match, put in an industrious effort but it was all in vein as Canterbury dominated every facet of the match.

Canterbury had all the early ball and field position and while the Auckland defence looked to stand firm in close when the ball was spread wide, Richie Mo’unga sliced through to open the scoring.

From there it was one-way traffic, the only respite a Simon Hickey penalty late in the half, but Canterbury led 29-3 at the break.

The home team added two more second half tries, on top of their four from the first, to take the score out to 43-3.

While Auckland showed glimpses on attack in the second spell they were almost always thwarted by handling errors.

Auckland coach Nick White was frank in his assessment of the match.

“Obviously we’re pretty disappointed.

“Disappointed in our accuracy at breakdown, we gave away far too many penalties, didn’t adapt to ref and couldn’t get continuity,” said White.

“You don’t go out there to lose like that. The boys are bloody disappointed with how things went. They realise they let themselves down and a lot of people that support the union. They are the ones that can fix it and need to do that next Friday night.”

White said the team didn’t have a chance to play their structures and will have to focus on the breakdown this week before hosting Northland on Friday.

Auckland 3 (S Hickey 1 pen)
Canterbury 43