Canterbury produced an excellent performance to destroy Otago 62-19 at the 'House of Pain' in Carisbrook.

An almost error free display by the Cantabs neeted them 12 tries as they completely blew away their hosts.

Canterbury skipper Todd Blackadder believes Otago were unlucky to meet his side on such good form. "It was great effort by the guys and we certainly needed to step up from last week. Last week certainly wasn't an effort that we were proud of and we knew we were far better than that.

"We had a good kick up the backside and we just wanted to get out there and play well. And the guys delivered tonight so it was very good.

The power and dominance of the Canterbury forwards gave Justin Marshall and Andrew Mehrtens the time to control the game, cause havoc and set up some breath-taking tries.

Canterbury hooker Matt Sexton opened the scoring in the second minute of the game and by the time openside flanker Richard McCaw completed his hat-trick of tries on the half hour the match was effectively over at 31-0.

Mehrtens added another after racing sixty metres and Otago finally pulled a try back just before half-time through Pita Alatini.

Canterbury picked up where they left off soon after the break when Aaron Mauger crossed after just two minutes. Otago bounced back through some good work by Tony Brown who was able to put Jeff Wilson in in the corner.

Sam Broomhall had only been on the park mere minutes before he completed on e of the moves of the match. Marshall ran a double-around from a scrum on his own 10 metre line and gassed through a gaping hole in the Otago defensive line. He fed Mehrtens on the inside with the All Black, switching play out to Afato So'oalo who in turn found a charging Broomhall who went in under the posts.

Marshall weighed in with his own try before the Cantabs produced another show-stopper. Once again the try was launched form deep inside their own half. Aaron Mauger produced a sensational blind pass to a flying Joe Maddock who scythed through, attracted the remaining cover defence who were wrongfooted with a deft infield pass to Nathan Mauger who cruised the final 20 metres under the posts for an inceredible 62-12 scoreline.

Otago had the last word with a try through Sam Harding.