South Sydney have created a mini Allegiant Stadium in their own backyard as they ramp up preparations for next month’s historic double-header in Las Vegas.

The Rabbitohs have replicated the dimensions of the field they will play on against Manly to open the season in the United States to help them adjust to a rugby league field missing close to 1100 square metres of turf.

Coach Jason Demetriou and his football department have spent this week training on a marked modified field to help make the necessary adjustments ahead of their showdown with the Sea Eagles on March 3 (Australian time).

“We always do a lot of situational training in and around scenarios, so this is just another scenario we will spend a week prepping on and getting our heads around what works and what doesn’t work,” Demetriou told the Herald.

“We’ll spend this week doing that, take our learnings from it and take it over to Vegas with it. The players definitely felt the width difference. We’ll need to fine-tune what we do in attack and work out ways to find that space.

“Defensively, there’s no doubt it will influence our defensive movements as well. We haven’t noticed a huge difference yet, but we’ll build up through the week and have a 13-on-13 arm-wrestle style training and get a better feeling for what we should or shouldn’t do.”

The field at Allegiant Stadium will be 63.1 metres wide, bringing the sidelines in about 2.45 metres on either side from a standard NRL field (68 metres wide).

The length, which South Sydney haven’t adjusted given the stationary position of the goalposts at their Heffron Park training base, will also be reduced. The teams will play on a 94.5-metre-long field, with the in-goal area also reduced from eight metres to 6.4.