The Bulls were forced to change jerseys at halftime of their farcical Super Rugby clash with the Highlanders as fans were left baffled by the glaring kit clash.

Competition organisers SANZAAR admitted they had dropped the ball by allowing the teams to run out at Loftus Versfeld in such similar colours and patterns.

“SANZAAR is disappointed that the jerseys for the Bulls versus Highlanders [green shirts] match on the weekend appeared to cause confusion,” they said in a statement.

“The Bulls changed strip at halftime to alleviate the issue and SANZAAR will endeavour to ensure similar confusion does not take place in the future.”

The Bulls played the second half in a yellow and white jersey and ran out 38-13 winners.

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Marco van Staden of the Bulls with possession during the Super Rugby match. Source: Getty Images

Highlanders chief executive Roger Clark has since added more context to the embarrassing situation in an interview with stuff.co.nz’s Paul Cully.

“We get our jerseys when Adidas show us ‘this is what we’ve got’ as an away jersey,” Clark told Stuff.

“We get to tweak them a little bit but the jersey we’ve got is pretty similar to what they gave us.

“We then give our two jerseys to SANZAAR and they then put them on a sheet in a breakdown of who is going to play each other in each game.

“The explanation from SANZAAR was that they put them on a piece of paper and they looked different enough that we were going to play in them.

“The Hurricanes played over in Africa early on in one of these jerseys and the clash was bad.

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Highlanders No 8 Marino Mikaele Tu’u is lifted in a lineout at Loftus Versfeld. Source: AFP

“It wasn’t as bad as ours but it was bad and I thought, ‘this will be horrific’ because all the Kiwi teams, they’re all similar colours really.

“Normally the referee would pick it up before a game.

“But interestingly enough, from what I’ve heard is that when you put them next to each other, like when they do the coin toss, they actually look quite different.

“But when you put them on the field and people are looking for at them from the TV perspective or the stands then obviously there’s a massive clash.

“If the referee had worked it out before the game he could have asked the Bulls to change at that stage.”