It's a canter for Canterbury

The 'Log of Wood' stays in Christchurch

Canterbury cruised into the semi-finals with an easy 68-19 victory over an out-classed Northland team, in the final round of pool games in the Air New Zealand National Provincial Championships (NPC) at the Jade Stadium on Saturday. The Christchurch outfit also retained the Ranfurly Shield with their emphatic victory.

The win takes the Cantabs into second place, and a guaranteed spot in the semi-finals. But they must wait on the result of Sunday's crunch match between North Harbour and Bay of Plenty to see who their opponents will be and at which venue.

If BoP beat Harbour with a bonus point, they will go one point ahead of Canterbury, thus finishing second with a home semi-final, pushing Canterbury down to third position.

The home side put on an exhibition, scoring ten tries, without many of their All Black players who were taken-off in the first half to save legs for their upcoming NPC semi-finals.

After some early Northland pressure Canterbury fullback Ben Blair blocked a kick for scrum-half Jared Going. Blair passed the ball to electric winger, Scott Hamilton.

The winger spun the ball to Brad Thorn, who linked with flanker Richie McCaw and hooker Tone Kopelani before Hamilton finished off the move.

Ben Blair was on hand just minutes later to snatch his second try inside 12 minutes with Carter again landing the conversion with ease.

Canterbury started to play with style and confidence, with Aaron Mauger and Carter creating space out wide for Blair to feed Hamilton for his second try and a 21-0 scoreline after only 20 minutes.

Canterbury were bossing the game and put the vital bonus point in the bag when flanker McCaw found All-Black centre Carter with a long pass to out-strip the defence to the corner, taking the score to 35-0.

Minutes later, Beefy centre Casey Laulala ran over the pitiful Northland defence to grab a try, converted by Carter.

With the game well won, Canterbury coach Aussie McLean started pulling his star players - Chris Jack, Caleb Ralph and Richie McCaw - with barely half an hour gone.

Just before half-time, replacement Rhyan Cain threw a dummy and dotted down for a try, rewarding a good passage of play for Northland. Unfortunately for Northland, Going missing the conversion making it 42-5 at half-time.

Northland put up a fight in the second half and managed three consolation tries through replacement scrum-half Rhyan Caine and big wing Fero Lasagavibau, but it was all too little, too late.

The 61-19 score-line looked like a fair score, but there was still enough time for Blair to get his hat-trick before the referee put the Northland fans out of their misery, with a 68-19 final score.

The scorers:

For Canterbury:
Tries: Blair 3, Hamilton 2, Leo'o 2, Ralph, Carter, Laulala
Cons: Carter 9

For Northland:
Tries: Caine 2, Lasagavibau.
Cons: Going 2