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Kia ora, good evening and welcome to Newshub's live coverage of the NPC quarter-final between Canterbury and Auckland at Christchurch's Orangetheory Stadium.
The red-and-blacks have earned home advantage by finishing third during the regular season, winning six and losing four. Curiously, they have a worse record than Bay of Plenty and Hawke's Bay (7-3) in fourth and fifth, but gathered more bonus points (13) than any other team in the competition.
Among those defeats was a 36-29 result against Auckland at Eden Park last month, a contest that was level 29-29 with a couple of minutes remaining, before replacement hooker Joe Royal scored a winning try, converted by first-five Zarn Sullivan.
Needless to say, these two provinces have a rivalry that dates back to the beginning of time, so this match-up is an ideal way to kick off the NPC knockout rounds.
Join us at 7pm for kickoff.
TAB Odds: Canterbury $1.47, Auckland $2.80, Draw $18
Canterbury: 1-Dan Lienert-Brown, 2-George Bell, 3-Oli Jager, 4-Zach Gallagher, 5-Sam Darry, 6-Billy Harmon, 7-Tom Christie, 8-Cullen Grace, 9-Mitchell Drummond, 10-Fergus Burke, 11-Solomon Alaimalo, 12-Rameka Poihipi, 13-Dallas McLeod, 14-Manasa Mataele, 15-Chay Fihaki
Reserves: 16-Ben Funnell, 17-Joe Moody, 18-Seb Calder, 19-Dom Gardiner, 20-Reed Prinsep, 21-Willi Heinz, 22-Ryan Crotty, 23-Blair Murray
Auckland: 1-Josh Fusitua, 2-Soane Vikena, 3-Angus Ta'avao, 4-Edward Annandale, 5-Josh Beehre, 6-Che Clark, 7-Blake Gibson, 8-Vaiolini Ekuasi, 9-Kalani Thomas, 10-Zarn Sullivan, 11-Salesi Rayasi, 12-Bryce Heem, 13-Tanielu Tele'a, 14-Alex Hodgman, 15-Roger Tuivasa-Sheck
Reserves: 16-Leni Apisai, 17-Tito Tuipulotu, 18-Marcel Renata, 19-Hamish Dalzell, 20-Niko Jones, 21-Taufa Funaki, 22-Corey Evans, 23-Xavier Tito-Harris
