The Vodacom Bulls are learning to cope not only with artificial pitches, but also with sub-zero degree weather conditions.
And while loose forward Nizaam Carr admits their performance against Lyon in the Heineken Champions’ Cup last weekend was nowhere near good enough, he believes they are better for the experience.
It isn’t a secret over the years the Bulls have been poor travellers, and the combination of winter conditions and artificial pitches made their ball presentation sloppy and poor against Lyon, something they have addressed internally.
But as Carr points out, this is all new to them and this time of year probably produces the worst weather conditions to encounter in Europe. The biting cold, coupled with snow on the surface is something that is foreign to most of the sides, but something they need to overcome as they will face similar conditions again.
In fact, they may well face them in Wales this weekend against Scarlets, who had a phenomenal run of results in Europe, and the chances are the weather won’t be much warmer, or the pitch much better than they encountered in France.
What needs to change is the way they adapt to the conditions and the way they front up.
“We have a few guys who have European experience, including myself, so we’ve been giving the boys tips on how to prepare. Unfortunately the result didn’t go our way last week Friday but we’ve had a hard look at ourselves and how we can be better as a pack,” Carr said on Tuesday.
“The weather is always going to be part of it, playing in the northern hemisphere. We’re getting the worst weather now, this time of year it is going to be tough on any team travelling here. I don’t like making excuses.
“You have to consider your game plan playing in conditions like that, but whatever you have to do to win, with the ref and the weather on the day, you need to do.”
The newness of the pitch and the difficulties it presented was something new for the Bulls, and Carr believes they will be prepared better next time out.
“For most of the boys, over 80 per cent, it was their first time playing on a 4G pitch. It is different and the snow coming down mid game was also new to a lot of the boys. The more experience we get, the more we learn about things that aren’t predictable to us in South Africa, the better we will become.
“Our plan is building a mix of younger guys and older heads. New pitch and we didn’t have a captain’s run in Lyon to familiarise ourselves with the field. But that was no excuse, we should always be on top of our game.
“Unfortunately it didn’t go our way but we did learn from it, and we will be better prepared next time.”
Now against Scarlets the Bulls want to end their eight-week horror stretch - where six of those weeks were playing away from home - on a high note.
“We're carrying with us a lot of confidence. Last week didn’t go our way but we said to each other one performance doesn’t define us as a group. How we have grown over the last three years and in the last couple of weeks, through a little bit of a rough patch, we are still training a lot of confidence at the moment.
“Last week was a difficult hurdle for us but we are there again, we are ready and excited. We are looking forward to Friday night’s game. We’re looking forward to that game to make a difference.
“We are hurting and we didn’t want to go down like that, but that is too small of a situation to kill our character and our confidence in the team. We will out-brave that and we will come out firing this Friday.”
Carr said while there had been discussions on why the team toured so poorly, it wasn’t a massive concern for the players.
“It isn’t a concern but we have been talking about it. We did have a look at that, but that is not the case - the camaraderie between the boys, on and off field is really tight. It will turn around for us, we are working really hard and we are focusing on different plans to tackle these things. We are not going away from what we are doing best.”
Words mean little though, and a win over Scarlets will be a massive boost for the Bulls' ambitions, as away points are very hard to come by at the moment in the URC and every one is worth their weight in gold.