The Highlanders may be sitting at the bottom of the New Zealand conference but captain Ben Smith says they're not pushing the panic button just yet.
Bouncing back with a gritty win over the Brumbies in Canberra last Saturday, inconsistency has plagued the side that has seen to miss the attacking games of Lima Sopoaga and Waisake Naholo.
Playing perennial strugglers the Rebels on Friday night, Smith played questions about whether the team was feeling any pressure to get the win with a very straight bat.
"It's not about a win for us, it's about putting out a good performance out on the field that we can be proud of," Smith said.
"Hopefully that's enough but we'll be doing everything we can to make sure we get out there and perform really well. If we can do that then that'll come.'
The Highlanders sit on nine points and 11th on the overall Super Rugby table. While they're level on number of wins with the Blues, they've simply struggled to score points.
It's a problem the Rebels don't seem to have, streaking out to a 19 point lead against the Waratahs before being mowed down in the second half.
But Smith said he sees similarities between the Highlanders and the Rebels.
"Since I've gone back over the whole (Rebels and Waratahs game), they've played some great rugby, they looked like they played good rugby for 60-70 minutes.
"Probably similar to us in a few games where we haven't quite nailed the last 10-20 minutes."
The Highlanders have a fairly favourable draw after the bye week where they play the Sunwolves and the Stormers.
They then take off to Africa to play the Cheetahs, Bulls and the Force and Smith says it gives them plenty of time to get back on track.
"I think it's still early days, there's still a lot of games to be played in the competition so the good thing is we just take it week by week and this week against the rebels we want to get out there and play the best footy we can so we'll go from there after that."
Smith also tipped the hat to teammate Aaron Smith, who'll play his 50th match for the Highlanders, saying he was an integral part of the unit.
"It's pretty massive for the whole team and we're excited for his milestone.
"Guys like Aaron are really key to the way we do things, how we play our rugby, how the environment runs and how the team enjoys their rugby."
Newshub.
