Canterbury tipped to defend title

Unbreakable: Canterbury's defence was solid against the Magpies

Southland scrum-half Scott Cowan believes Canterbury will retain the title they won last year when they face Wellington in Saturday's Air New Zealand Cup final.

Wellington have contested the last three finals but came away empty-handed on each occasion and Cowan reckons more of the same is in store for coach Jamie Joseph's team.

The red and blacks won last year's final 7-6 in Wellington. When the two teams last met, Canterbury gave Wellington a huge lesson in set-piece play as they thumped the Lions 36-14 to walk away with the Ranfurly Shield.

Since then both teams have had to adjust to life without their All Blacks, while Wellington has also worked hard at improving their line-out and scrum, which was evident in the way the Southland pack found itself going backwards at scrum-time in last weekend's semi-final.

Southland were knocked out of the tournament when Wellington won 34-21 on Saturday, just nine days after the Stags put 50 years of misery behind them to beat Canterbury 9-3 in a rousing Ranfurly Shield challenge in Christchurch.

Cowan, younger brother of All Black Jimmy, is tipping Canterbury's defence to win the day against Wellington at AMI Stadium, a prediction he's based on his team's experiences within the past fortnight.

"Canterbury are really intense on the D (defence) while Wellington have showed they are pretty awesome on attack," Cowan told NZPA.

"But as we've shown this year, defence wins games so I'd back Canterbury."