Haitana has a point to prove

Like most of the Taniwha squad, Karl Haitana, is feeling the pressure ahead of tomorrow's match against Manawatu.
It has become a must-win game for the side, with their season on the line, but the Manawatu-born-and-bred prop has some old scores to settle when Northland run out onto the Palmerston North Showgrounds.
"A few people have written me off down there, so it's going to be good to go down there and prove them wrong and prove to Northland supporters that we can do it," Haitana said.
The 25-year-old is taking his part in the game very seriously.
"It's very important that I front up on Sunday, especially in the scrum, it's an area I've been working really hard on this year and have to keep working on," he said.
Haitana has been the starting tighthead prop since Justin Davies' season ended prematurely with a shoulder injury, before the Air New Zealand Cup had even kicked off. While he was recovering from an injury picked up playing for the Turbos last year, Haitana was contacted by Taniwha coach Bryce Woodward, asking him to consider coming north this season.
"He was my New Zealand Under-21 coach and when he contacted me, I wasn't doing much for Manawatu at the time, so I felt it would be a good lifestyle change to come up to the winterless north," he laughs.
Haitana said Manawatu are playing "really well" this season and are showing the benefits of two years of building by coach Dave Rennie and assistant Bruce Hemara at the union - but he isn't envious, he wants to take them down a peg in front of their home crowd.
"We're going to have to be on top of our game if we're going to beat them on their home pitch - you get a few of those "bucketheads" together and they get pretty rowdy," he said.
"It's going to be a big game on Sunday, we've worked really hard on our defence so we better get it right, a win is what we need going into a Ranfurly Shield Challenge the following week."
Canterbury beat Taranaki 29-17 last night, meaning next week Northland will challenge for the "log of wood" - a fact that has been downplayed by Northland coaching staff all week.
And last night's result will be ignored by the Northland team.
"We know that we can't afford to look beyond Sunday ... we played badly last week and have to front up this week because it's a T-intersection for us - we're going to go one way or another after this game and I hope it's the right way," Haitana said.
Meanwhile Manawatu have named a strong squad to meet the Taniwha. Promising flyhalf Aaron Cruden failed a fitness test yesterday and will miss the match, with openside flanker Josh Bradnock another player out of the match with injury.
David Te Moana and captain Nick Crosswell have been passed fit however and will start the match tomorrow at 2.35pm.