The Steamers have gone down to Otago 45-34 in a pulsating game under the roof at Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium last night, killed off by a hatrick of devastating second half intercept tries.

Despite taking home a bonus point for scoring at least four tries for the first time this season it was not the result they needed, and leaves them clinging on to their Mitre 10 Cup Championship division playoff hopes by their fingertips.

It was their best game since the round one win over Taranaki, as they produced a more composed performance than they've achieved in recent weeks and brought out the all-action running rugby they knew they needed to get the bonus point win they were targeting.

Captain Tyler Ardron said afterwards he was proud of their effort, as they threw everything they had at Otago. At the same time they cut the error rate dramatically and improved their discipline, but they might just be feeling there's no justice in this crazy game as every error they did make was punished severely, and the sense persisted through the match that whatever they could do, Otago could do just that little bit better.

The crucial spell of the match came just after halftime as, ironically, the Steamers had a handy 20-14 lead and were looking to extend it with Otago down to 14 men. Twice within two minutes however promising attacks turned to vain retreats as the home side's Matt Faddes first and then Josh Ioane stole passes from the Steamers' backline and sprinted better than 75 metres to score.

On both occasions openside dynamo Mitch Karpik, characterising his outstanding 80 minute performance, was the nearest to chasing down the try-scorers, and very nearly did so.

Prior to that things had looked quite promising. The Steamers had come out from the opening whistle and signalled their intentions with an early try to wing Bailey Simonsson, benefiting from slick passing from the base of the ruck by halfback Luke Campbell and first five Kaleb Trask.

Trask, newly promoted to the 10 jersey after the losses of Mike Delany and Jason Robertson, added his first highlight of an eye-catching performance with the team's second try after Ioane had levelled the ledger for Otago.

A penalty to Trask followed, and then, after a second Otago try to fullback Vilimoni Koroi, a penalty try for the visitors when they turned down another penalty attempt and kicked for the corner instead to set up a lineout rumble.

Then came the surreal period early in the second spell when the 20-14 lead, which could easily have been extended to 27-14 or even beyond as the Steamers attacked with passion and threw the ball around with freedom, turned into a 31-20 deficit thanks to Otago's appetite for pushing their defensive line up fast and looking for the interceptions.

To their credit though the attacks kept coming from the Bay boys, and hooker Tom Crozier was the next to get over the line. That was the fourth try they were looking for to earn the bonus point, and it closed the game to 31-27 with a quarter of the game remaining.

Unfortunately for them though that quarter belonged almost entirely to the home side who quickly stretched out to 45-27 with second tries to Faddes and then Kiroi from the third intercept of the night when a Steamers pass fell to earth as they mounted yet another promising attack.

With the game gone replacement lock Aaron Carroll continued to add to his season try tally, getting over after taking a quick tap and go from a penalty five metres out.

Where there's life there's hope, they say, and there is a scenario under which the Steamers could still sneak past Northland and into the fourth playoff place.

That relies on the Blue and Golds taking bonus point wins in their two remaining matches, over Southland this Sunday and then Northland the following Saturday, and the northerners going through their two games without picking up another point.

That would leave the two teams tied on 21 points, and as the Steamers would have won the match between them they would go through.

If it comes off though it would be an escape Harry Houdini would have been proud of.

Bay of Plenty 34 (Bailey Simonsson, Kaleb Trask, Tom Crozier, Aaron Carroll tries; penalty try; Trask con, pen; Reece MacDonald con).

Otago 45 (Josh Ioane 2, Vilimoni Koroi 2, Matt Faddes 2 tries; Ioane 6 con, pen)

HT: 14-20