Cardiff Blues travel to Parc y Scarlets this Saturday knowing that they must equal what Harlequins do at home against Gloucester if they are to reach the semi final of the LV=Cup.
It won’t be an easy task as the capital city side have not recorded a win in Llanelli since before the regions were formed, with the last win coming in 2001 when Llanelli RFC were beaten by 65 points to 16.
Speaking ahead of the match Cardiff Blues Director of Rugby, David Young, said,
“The win against Newcastle last weekend certainly puts us in a position where we can kick on and achieve something.”
“Looking back at the second round match against London Irish we were probably dead and buried.”
“The Scarlets did us a bit of a favour beating Wasps, and we recorded a bonus point win, but I’m sure the Scarlets aren’t going to do us any favours this week.”
“They will want to win as well, I think they need at least a point to qualify, which is very difficult to plan for so they will be going for the win.”
“The rivalry is very strong between the two teams so it should be a great match.”
“Realistically we would need a bonus point win as I really fancy Quins to record a bonus point win over Gloucester, who go to The Stoop with nothing to play for.”
“I think the players responded well to similar pressure when we travelled to The Stoop needing a bonus point win, so hopefully they will respond equally well for this match.”
“It’s very much a quarter final match because if we do get the bonus point win it puts us in the semi finals, and maybe even a home draw, so that’s a big incentive.”
“It you look at our past history against the Scarlets away it’s embarrassing so we know it won’t be easy and will be looking to rectify it.”
“Ahead of the Newcastle game I stated that we needed a lot of the players to step up and they certainly did.”
“A lot of the youngsters who hadn’t had game time gave us that energy and desire and the old heads stood up and led the way.”
“It was good to see Maama Molitika back and Sam Norton Knight had a good game at full back. Scott Morgan and Paul Tito lead the pack well.”
“It was a good win although one disappointing factor was the way Newcastle scored so easily from driving line outs.”
“We worked at it this week at hopefully we have put it right.”
15 Ben Blair 14 Gareth Thomas 13 Casey Laulala 12 Tom Shanklin 11 Dafydd James
10 Ceri Sweeney 9 Darren Allinson
8 Xavier Rush 7 Sam Warburton 6 Maama Molitika 5 Paul Tito (c) 4 Deiniol Jones 3 Gary Powell 2 T Rhys Thomas 1 Taufa’ao Filise
16 Rhys James 17 Scott Andrews 18 Ian George 19 Scott Morgan 20 Andries Pretorius 21 Tom Slater 22 Sam Norton Knight 23 Chris Czekaj
