The opening kickoff from North Otago did not break the necessary 10m and that foreshadowed what was to come.
The Old Golds were soundly beaten 34-19 by Whanganui at Whitestone Contracting Stadium on Saturday.
Head coach Jason Forrest was "absolutely gutted" by the result.
"It hurts," he said.
"You can’t turn up with that sort of attitude against a good side and think you’re going to get away with it week-to-week."
Mistakes were made "right across the park", he said.
"Our attack was non-existent. We didn’t have line speed on defence.
"We couldn’t build phases. Error rate was getting [high] — errors in contact and just little things. We didn’t do the little things well."
A lot their mistakes were "hopefully easy fixes", Forrest said.
"For this group and these sorts of players, they should be able to fix that pretty easily."
There was no room left for error the rest of the season, Forrest said.
"We’ve just got to win and win with five points these next three games."
North Otago scored the first try of the game after Whanganui opened with a penalty off the boot of Daniel Whale.
It was a well-worked lineout move 5m out that enabled Vilimoni Koroi to shoot down the blindside only to pop an inside ball to Aleki Morris-Lome who went over.
From there Whanganui had all the momentum.
They ran in three tries in the first half, included a double to midfielder Alekesio Vakarorogo, to carry a 20-5 lead into the sheds.
Both sides were messy after halftime with handling errors an issue all around the park.
But Whanganui were able to overcome that and some slick passing from their backs put winger Apolosi Tanoa in open space to score his second of the game.
As North Otago emptied their bench early, the replacements made an instant impact.
Tini Feke was lively from halfback and took a quick tap 5m out from the Whanganui line.
From there he was able to burrow his way over to close the gap.
But just as North Otago looked to turn the tide, the blue and blacks hammered the nail in the coffin as Joshua Brunger scooped up a kick that had found open space and he crashed over.
Osea Qamasea was able to run in a late consolation try for the Old Golds.
South Canterbury remain the team to beat in the Heartland Championship as they beat West Coast in Fairlie.
Down 14-10 at the break, the green and blacks put in a huge second-half shift to claim a 39-26 victory.
Thames Valley are the only other unbeaten side as they beat Mid Canterbury 34-31.
Heartland Championship
The scores
Whanganui 34
Alekesio Vakarorogo 2, Apolosi Tanoa 2, Joshua Brunger tries; Daniel Whale 3 con pen.
North Otago 19
Aleki Morris-Lome, Tini Feke, Osea Qamasea tries; Levi Emery 2 con.
Halftime: Whanganui 20-5.
