The Bay of Plenty Steamers' playoffs chances have gone, but they'll still be looking to go hard, claim some personal pride and have some fun in their Mitre 10 Cup clash with Southland tomorrow in Invercargill.

Northland finally killed off the Steamers' distant hopes of scraping into the fourth and final Championship tier semifinal spot when they picked up a bonus point in their defeat to Waikato this afternoon. That put them 11 points ahead of fifth-placed Bay of Plenty, who have only a maximum of 10 available to them in their final two matches.

Six losses on the bounce, including last Wednesday's 45-34 defeat by Otago, have effectively pulled the rug out from under their season after they had started so promisingly with wins over Premiership tier sides Taranaki and Counties Manukau.

That left them with just the slimmest of chances of making it into the top four, needing to win both their remaining matches with a bonus point and hope that Northland failed to pick up a single point from theirs. But their four tries this afternoon against Waikato finally dealt to that prospect.

So without the pressure of having to keep pushing for an unlikely playoff place the Steamers will look to throw off the shackles and regain some pride in their match tomorrow, against a Southland side which has not won a game all season.

Head Coach Clayton McMillan has stuck with virtually the same 23 that put in their best performance in weeks against Otago, with an unchanged starting 15 and only one move on the bench - hooker Valentine Meachen coming in for Angus McDonald.

A couple of other bench positions remain unconfirmed with Zane Kapeli bracketed with Tanerau Latimer and first five-eight cover Reece MacDonald with Trael Joass.

Flanker Mitch Karpik, one of the best in Wednesday night's Otago match, will earn a blazer for his 15^th outing in the blue and gold hoops tomorrow afternoon.

Bay of Plenty Steamers to take on Southland in Invercargill tomorrow, kicking off at 2:05 (appearances in brackets):

1. James Lay (18), 2. Tom Crozier (6), 3. Ross Geldenhuys (8), 4. Baden Wardlaw (6), 5. Kane Le'aupepe (6), 6. Tyler Ardron (13) (c), 7. Mitch Karpik (14), 8. Hoani Matenga (7), 9. Luke Campbell (24), 10. Kaleb Trask (5), 11. Fa'asiu Fuatai (8), 12. Terrence Hepetema (26), 13. Liam Steel (12), 14. Bailey Simonsson (5), 15. Chase Tiatia (33)

Reserves:

16. Valentine Meachen (1), 17. Josh Davey (1), 18. Jeff Thwaites (29), 19. Aaron Carroll (7), 20. Zane Kapeli (5)/Tanerau Latimer (83), 21. Richard Judd (17), 22. Reece MacDonald (1)/Trael Joass (5), 23. Lalomilo Lalomilo (1)