THE journey to Ghencea Stadium was certainly daunting so it was great to get the job done in Bucharest. Now we need to repeat the trick at Rodney Parade this evening.

It was a really good win in difficult circumstances; we showed plenty of character and composure to come back from 10-0 down with 37 unanswered points.

It was a different and testing experience playing out there so coming through it has brought us even tighter as a squad.

We knew it would be cold and seeing the snow piled up on the side of the runway when we landed certainly hammered that home.

Then there was the change of pitch because their Stadium Arcul de Triumf was waterlogged, meaning the game moved across Bucharest.

We couldn't have a team run as planned and we were told that it was pretty much a park pitch so I imagined us playing on their version of Tredegar Park.

In the end the surface wasn't too bad and the changing rooms were nice and warm... almost too warm! Perhaps they were trying to lull us into a false sense of security before the game because I thought I had hypothermia after running out for the second half.

The weather made us really appreciate the support that we had out there – including one brave guy in a Dragon costume – and it was great to hear them backing us amongst all the Romanian accents.

It was slightly bizarre to be kicking off at 1pm (11am our time) and that had its challenges for me because I am a bit of a night owl.

I didn't get to sleep until around 2am so it was just as well that our plush hotel provided us with a coffee machine at breakfast. By and large if something's free then a rugby player will have it. I must have had about seven espressos to wake me up.

So there were plenty of challenges facing us and I think we deserve plenty of credit for getting the job done against a side that are notoriously tough to beat on their own patch.

We knew that Bucharest had a good 20 or 30 minutes in them and it was just a case of getting a foothold in the game.

The difference between playing in our half and theirs was unbelievable. In ours they were a good team but as soon as we got over the threshold of halfway they panicked a bit.

We mixed things up a bit at the restart after going 10-0 down, going with a split rather than long, and Matthew Pewtner claimed it before we won a penalty that put a seed of doubt in their minds.

We can learn plenty of lessons for tonight's game and we have plenty of respect for Bucharest – they have got plenty of big units, a very good scrum and a strong pick-and-go game.

Compounding errors allowed them to get their tails up. This time we can't start as sluggishly.

Depending on the weather we hope to be more expansive tonight because we haven't scored anywhere near enough tries this season.

It would be the perfect boost for Zebre and the Cardiff Blues double-header if we can do that – but it's a case of getting the win first against a solid Bucharest side rather than thinking of running in the tries.