VERN Cotter hasn't pushed the panic button - but the rewind button is in for a hammering as the Bay of Plenty Steamers look ahead to Saturday's Ranfurly Shield challenge against Canterbury.

Cotter has promised to closely review the NPC division one footage as his Steamers were totally frozen out by Otago 29-6 at Carisbrook.

The hosts scored four tries, earning a bonus point, while the Bay limped through their opening game, played in at times Arctic cold with lashings of rain, without scoring a try.
``We didn't get over the line and got penalised,'' Cotter said. ``We're definitely going to have a look at our techniques and see if they were justified and certainly make an adjustment.''
One of the big areas of concern was the tackle ball and ruck area where the Steamers infringed time after time - forcing referee Jonathan White to play a major part in the shape of the match.

Steamers captain Wayne Ormond spent a lot of the game asking for clarifications on White's frequent interpretations while Cotter is searching for tactical answers before they meet Canterbury. ``There are no alarm bells as yet and the comforting thing is there's a high level of disappointment in the changing shed,'' Cotter said. ``We need to have a look as a team, at the ref as well, and see if we're insisting too much and look to refine that for next week's game.''
Cotter said there is plenty of improvement needed in this side, which missed the mature decision-making of last year's backline kingpins Glen Jackson and Rua Tipoki.

The Bay created three clear scoring opportunities but couldn't finish them with the ball being pushed about and spilled or the Otago defence rallying to keep them out.
In turn, Otago pounced on the Bay errors to score some ``soft tries'' with flanker Josh Blackie capping off a strong game with the bonus-point earning score which summed up the match.
Replacement Otago halfback Danny Lee probed from a ruck. His pass bounced off lock Filipo Levi and landed in Blackie's arms while Ormond was in an offside position.

Uncharacteristically Ormond, who would normally have just made the tackle and suffered the penalty, had his hands up admitting the foul as the referee waved play on. Ormond felt his side was underdone and said they would have to turn that around quickly.
``We have to, there's no other choice, we've got to refocus and come out a new side on Monday,'' Ormond said.

The captain, with locks Bernie Upton and Mark Sorenson, was a busy figure in the Bay forward effort while left winger Anthony Tahana looked sharp during the early exchanges.
He almost scored in the opening minutes, running 40 metres before hitting the defence. Tahana was driven over the line but couldn't ground the ball. From the five-metre scrum Bay No8 Colin Bourke and halfback Charles Hubbard combined to lose the ball and the scene was set from most of the first 20 minutes.
Bay's only response on the scoreboard were two penalties to Murray Williams, one either side of halftime, while he missed with two others.