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Confidence is crucial for a winger, and tries in the first two Air New Zealand Cup matches are just the booster Steven Yates needs in what could be a career-making season for him.

The 24-year-old started the season with 18 caps for Canterbury, but, particularly with Rico Gear moving to the UK, has the incentive of a Super 14 contract if he has a big season in NPC.

His well-taken tries against Bay of Plenty and Counties were the perfect start.

"They were a couple of set moves and we seemed to just go straight through them," he says.

He is in the starting 15 again tomorrow at Carisbrook.

Yates believes his sevens selection for New Zealand this year he went to six IRB tournaments and scored about 22 tries after debuting against Kenya in Wellington - has helped him for 15-aside.

"It got the confidence up and I'm just more excited now about having a go, having a crack myself rather than looking to pass first," he said.

"I would love to have another crack at sevens. I really enjoyed it."

Yates had not thought seriously about sevens before that, but he heard the New Zealand team was "getting repicked, and I really went hard and went for it."

He came home from the sevens circuit and promptly scored six tries in a match for Burnside's division two team, when division one had the bye. And he's followed that up with two hat-tricks in division one games. Yates has been asked to take on more leadership this season, and he feels the competition for places now Rico Gear is back with Canterbury is good, pushing everybody and making sure they perform.

"We're not holding spots for the All Blacks, and so now we're all going to work tight for our spots for the whole season, not tapering off towards the end and letting the All Blacks come in and take over," he said.

While all the pundits predict Canterbury will maintain their 100% record in tomorrow's third round match at Carisbrook, Yates pointed out Otago beat them handily pre-season and would be strong at home.

Yates grew up in Karamea, moving to Christchurch Boys' High as a boarder in the fourth form. The Karamea school was a nursery of sporting talent when he was there netball star Anna Scarlett was one year ahead of him.