Woeful Bulls outplayed, outmuscled in the snow as Lyon hand out a rugby lesson

Almost everything was against the Bulls heading into Friday night's European Champions Cup clash against Lyon at Matmut Stadium, but nobody could have expected things to go quite as badly as they did. 

The tourists, outplayed and outmuscled, were walloped 31-7 in their final pool stage fixture of the competition. 

AS IT HAPPENED | Lyon 31-7 Bulls

Having needed a losing bonus point at the very least to secure qualification to the last 16, the Bulls must now wait for Saturday's fixtures before they can celebrate. 

If the Sharks (already qualified) beat Harlequins at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon (15:00), then the Bulls will qualify for the playoffs. 

If Harlequins win, however, then the Bulls will become invested in Racing 92's trip to table-topping Leinster at 17:15. If Racing win that match with a bonus point, then the Bulls will move down to eighth in Pool A. 

That is an unlikely result given that Leinster are overwhelming favourites, but it does mean that the Bulls' fate is now out of their own hands.

Even if Racing pull off that unlikely win, however, Gloucester would then need to beat Bordeaux Begles away from home by more than 50 points to knock the Bulls out of the playoff positions. 

The more significant outcome is that, regardless of what happens from here, the Bulls will play their last 16 fixture away from home. 

From the first whistle, the South Africans were on the back foot. 

They travelled from a Pretoria summer to freezing French temperatures, there was concern over the synthetic Lyon surface and their Director of Rugby Jake White stayed home as he continues his recovery from emergency surgery. 

But even with all those factors, there was little excuse for what the Bulls dished up in the opening 40 minutes. 

They