Cardiff Blues take on Sale Sharks in the Heineken Cup with both teams needing a win to have a chance of progressing to the quarter- final stages.
Speaking ahead of the match David Young said,
“Saturday’s match is a must win game for us, as it is for the Sale Sharks. Being realistic, if we lose to Sale, we are pretty much out of both the top tier and the second-tier competitions in Europe. So we have got to make sure we go into the last game with an opportunity to get into the quarter final stage of either the Heineken or Amlin cups. That has got to be our focus.”
“It we don’t qualify for either competition it will be a huge blow for us after having had such a good run in Europe last season.”
Reflecting on last season’s campaign, Young feels that perhaps there is added pressure on the Blues to achieve this season,
“The 2008/09 campaign was great, but some people said we over-achieved and perhaps we did. But we certainly should be doing better than we are this year. We have put ourselves under pressure and must get ourselves out of it,” added Young.
“There was expectation after our achievements of last year but we must deal with that pressure. The great champions continue to produce season on season. As we have seen year-on-year, your fate is in your own hands once into the knockout stages. They are one-off games and they can always go either way.”
Young also admits that the Sharks will also be a real threat following some good performances by the English team,
“Sale managed to pick up a bonus-point win away at Harlequins, which is never easy, so they are in a very strong position and they will certainly fancy playing against us here today.”
“However, if we play as well as we can, I am confident we have nothing to fear. The frustrating thing for all of us this season is that we have not performed for the full 80 minutes. We’ve shown glimpses of what we can do, as against the Dragons over the Christmas period, but it’s crucial that we play well for the whole match.”
15 Ben Blair 14 Leigh Halfpenny 13 Casey Laulala 12 Jamie Roberts 11 Tom James 10 Ceri Sweeney 9 Richie Rees
8 Xavier Rush 7 Martyn Williams 6 Andy Powell 5 Deiniol Jones 4 Bradley Davies 3 Taufau Filise 2 Gareth Williams 1 Gethin Jenkins (c)
16 T Rhys Thomas 17 Sam Hobbs 18 Gary Powell 19 Paul Tito 20 Ben White 21 Gareth Cooper 22 Sam Norton Knight 23 Tom Shanklin
