Beating the Bulls in South Africa is all the more difficult because of the altitude but there can be advantages to playing at 1350 metres above sea level. Ross Thompson reckons it will add six or seven metres to his kicking range and the Edinburgh stand-off hopes to take full advantage in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship quarter-final in Pretoria, both from hand and off the tee. “You can kick long into the 22 from deep,” said Thompson. “If we get penalties and kick to touch, you can obviously get deeper into their 22. It is an opportunity to try and advance further down the field that way. But likewise you can’t sit too flat, because they can put kicks over your head. “So it adds a little bit, but it’s not too bad. It is nice - it’s a bit of an ego boost, I guess, when you’re kicking them a bit further.” Thompson also hopes it will help his place-kicking. He has already contributed 110 points in the URC this season, 105 of them with the boot, and will look to add to his tally of 33 conversions and 13 penalties. “Normally I’m about 48, 49 metres [off the tee]. I reckon I’d be probably mid-50s at Loftus,” said the fly-half who sits fourth in the URC points scorers table for the season, behind Scarlets’ Ioan Lloyd (124), Ospreys’ Dan Edwards (120) and Sharks’ Jordan Hendrikse (118). The downside of the rarefied atmosphere at Loftus Versfeld is, of course, the physical toll it takes. The Edinburgh squad will arrive in South Africa on Wednesday and their bodies will have little time to adjust to the thin air. No such problems for the Bulls who are accustomed to it and like to let the opposition know. There’s a famous sign in the stadium which proclaims: “Altitude. 1350m. It matters.” It’s all about getting in the heads of the opposition but it backfired last season when Glasgow Warriors defeated the hosts in the URC final at Loftus Versfeld and Warriors prop Jamie Bhatti celebrated by posting a picture of himself laughing at the sign while clutching his winners’ medal. Thompson, 25, was part of Glasgow’s URC-winning squad and although he wasn’t in the match-day 23 for the final he was in the stadium and has enough experience of playing there to know the pitfalls. “I think it’s the combination of the altitude and the heat that makes it tough,” he said. “We’re going to need all 23 players. The bench will play a massive part. You can play smart and conserve energy in certain areas of the game. Some of the forwards are going to have to go for 80 minutes, so we have to conserve their energy at times smartly through some of our kicking game, and then when we get the chance, we’ve got to take it.” Thompson moved to Edinburgh last summer and the switch to his home-town club has been good for the player who found himself behind Tom Jordan in the pecking order at Glasgow. By contrast, he has established himself as the first-choice 10 at Edinburgh, playing in all 18 of their URC games and starting 16 of them. “It was definitely the right decision and I’m really happy with the way it’s all worked out,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a difficult decision from a rugby perspective, but the easy decision would have been to stay at Glasgow, a club that you know. “But yeah, I’m really happy with how it’s all worked out. I couldn’t be happier - this last year has gone really well for me personally.” In this the fourth year of the URC, the idea of playing in South Africa is no longer a novelty. The long haul flights and adjusting to the heat and altitude remain formidable obstacles but there is a familiarity to it, particularly for Thompson who had two trips there in quick succession with Glasgow at the end of last season then returned there with Edinburgh at the start of this one. “I guess now it’s become normal,” he said. “At the beginning of the season when we went to South Africa, I’d spent five weeks in the last six months in the same hotel. So I was used to going to South Africa. “It’s not easy to go and win there. Not many teams go across there and win. But it’s definitely possible and you’ve seen with the teams that do, there are definitely certain aspects that they focus on. Yeah, it will be tough but we’re looking forward to it.”