Josh Turnbull insists his side can bounce back from Saturday’s disappointing defeat to Edinburgh, starting with this week’s trip to Scotstoun Stadium.
After kicking off the season with maximum points against Southern Kings in Port Elizabeth, John Mulvihill’s side couldn’t make it two-from-two as Jaco van der Walt inspired the Scottish outfit to victory at Cardiff Arms Park.
Turnbull admits it was frustrating to start their home campaign with a loss, but believes his side can remain confident of achieving their goals this season.
“It will be a great challenge on Saturday up in Glasgow. We go up there with a bit of momentum on the road, because we’ve been to play Southern Kings and came away with five points,” said the Welsh international.
“Now we have to go up there and do it all over again.
“But the disappointing thing is that we want to make Cardiff Arms Park a fortress and make it difficult for teams to come down here.
“It’s hard because the last time we played here was the Scarlets where we were 38 points ahead at half time. It’s disappointing that we couldn’t replicate that performance against Edinburgh.
“You look at the team who won last time, Connacht, who went well from the beginning and carried that momentum all the way through.
“We probably play a similar brand of rugby to what they were playing back then so for us it’s about getting back on the horse, right the wrongs and go up to Glasgow.”
14 points from the boot of van der Walt and a late Mark Bennett try secured victory for Richard Cockerill’s side at the Arms Park.
However, the utility forward believes a lack of discipline and a lack of pressure on the opposition was the reason for his side’s defeat.
Turnbull added: “We probably didn’t keep the ball for long enough and put enough pressure on them.
“Our attacking game is based on putting teams under pressure with ball movement and playing the ball out of the back, but we couldn’t do that.
“It became a game of set-piece after set-piece and we gave the ball away too much to be able to come away with enough points.
“There were a couple of personal penalties given away, and the referee had a chat with me and it’s about understanding the rules and what the referee’s interpretations of that are.
“That’s for the whole squad to improve, but we also missed more tackles in that game than we did the whole of last season.
“We’re a team that prides ourselves on defence and getting turnovers to play off because that gives us our best option to attack.”