Within the first nine minutes, Dagg had delivered a forward pass, a dropped ball and a poor kick for touch off the side of the boot. However, with his clever run which could have put hooker Jorian Tangaere in the clear in the 38th minute, Dagg did more than his good mate, former Magpie and fellow unwanted AB Cory Jane did for his Wellington team the previous night.
Magpies captain and No8 Brendon O'Connor was another of the high-profile stars to have an off night, with several unforced errors. Experienced halfback Chris Eaton will be disappointed with some of his fumbles.
As Eaton said at halftime: "We're getting enough quality ball but we're our own worst enemies by putting passes down and dropping balls."
Once again, the Magpies missed tackles stat was alarming with 29, three fewer than the previous week against North Harbour and nine more than Canterbury.
Another disappointing stat was the 28 turnovers conceded, five more than Canterbury.
There's only one way for the Magpies to bounce back from their first loss in the comp and that's to retain the Ranfurly Shield with a win against Bay of Plenty at McLean Park on Saturday.
Something similar to the 39-10 win against Northland last month will be the boost required before another Premiership outfit, Auckland, arrive in town.
"We were never going to go through this competition unbeaten," Philpott said.
He agreed his team could have been up 5-0 after two minutes but the kick into the in-goal area from second five-eighth Andrew Horrell in his 100th first class game went too far.
During the next 15-20 minutes, the Magpies dropped the ball at least seven times, lacked the necessary accuracy at the breakdown and didn't look after the ball as well as they should have. Philpott was also disappointed with his team's one-on-one defensive work, and three of those type of tackles were missed as second five-eighth Rob Thompson scored the Cantabs' first try before the second minute had ticked over.
"We've got to remember that this was a good Canterbury side and they showed us the bar which has to be reached if we want to compete with the best Premiership teams. Our second half was better," Philpott said.
There were still positives for the Magpies. One was the goalkicking of first five-eighth Ihaia West, who has succeeded with his last 16 attempts at goal.
Another was the enthusiasm of winger Shannan Chase, who had an average gain of 15 metres from his eight carries, beat four defenders and made five line breaks. Another was winger Robbie Fruean, who had an average gain of 11 metres from six carries.
Match highlights
* Heartstopper: That dropped ball from Magpies hooker Jorian Tangaere in the 38th minute when there was open territory between him and the tryline. A try then would have boosted the visitors.
* Turning point: Canterbury fullback Tom Taylor's 12th minute penalty which put the hosts ahead 17-0. This was too big a deficit for the woeful Magpies against such high calibre opponents.
* Player of the match: Canterbury flanker Matt Todd. For his clever try which put the Cantabs ahead 22-0 and his work at the breakdown which created numerous turnovers for the hosts.
Scorers: Canterbury 29 (Rob Thompson, Tulolo Tulolo, Matt Todd, Joe Moody tries; Tom Taylor 3 cons, pen), Hawke's Bay 14 (Shannan Chase, Robbie Fruean tries; Ihaia West 2 cons). HT: 22-0.
