It may be all about Europe this weekend, with the Scarlets and Cardiff Blues both in semi-final action on Saturday (Scarlets travel to Leinster in the Champions Cup and the Blues face Pau at the Arms Park in the Challenge Cup), but the finale of the domestic season begins in earnest a week later with more silverware still on the line for both sides.
At JDVI the Scarlets will want to beat the Dragons with a flourish and grab a home drawn PRO14 ‘quarter-final’ play-off by finishing second in Conference B – and they could even go top and fly straight into the ‘semi-finals’, if* Leinster finish with no further points on the board after their own league stage denouement, played simultaneously at the Sportsground in Connacht.
Both Ospreys and Dragons are out of the PRO14 running and the Liberty Stadium outfit have already secured a European play-off spot which could give passage to EPCR Champions Cup action next season, so it’s just bragging rights and pride at stake for each of them.
But, whisper it quietly, Cardiff Blues will be one good win (over the Ospreys) away from joining the Scarlets in the PR014 play-offs, if* Kings can beat Toyota Cheetahs and prevent them from picking up a losing bonus point earlier in the day (KO 2.00pm).
Kings take on their South African counterparts in Nelson Mandela Bay an hour before the JDVI opener in Cardiff (3.05pm) and long before a ball is kicked in game two of the double-header, when the Blues face the Ospreys (5.35pm).
The only problem for Blues fans is the form book: Kings have won just one game all season, a 45–13 home victory over fellow Conference B strugglers the Dragons, in March.
Their record against the Cheetahs, who are currently riding high in third place in Conference A, stands at: played two, lost two, with each loss coming by a 20+ points margin (21-45 and 45-24).
The Cheetahs also have their own incentive to see off the Kings, it is they who Cardiff Blues are attempting to leapfrog in order to claim that Guinness PR014, Conference A, top three, play-off spot.
Split into two conferences for the first part of the season the PRO14 breaks out into a play-off structure after JDVI, with the top three teams in each Conference entering the knock-out stages of the competition.
Cardiff Blues are currently in fourth, five points behind Toyota Cheetahs and, with one league game left each, the Cheetahs look to have a pretty firm grip on third place.
Blues fans will see picking up maximum points with a scoring-four-tries-or-more victory over the Ospreys as do-able – after all, they beat their West Wales rivals by a significant margin last year at JDV and there was only a point in it when the two sides met in Swansea in January (29-28 to the home side).
So, suspend believe for a second and accept that the Kings can beat the Cheetahs – they are at home and sport wouldn’t be sport if results were a forgone conclusion – and there is just one final hurdle to overcome.
It’s a hurdle which the Blues can have some influence over too: the Welsh capital club need to claw back a 23-point deficit in points-difference and then that’s it, they would be in the play-offs!
Keeping the dream alive for a further second: imagine the Kings have beaten the Cheetahs, it was a close run thing but they’ve done it, they’ve pulled off an amazing victory with a last gasp try in the dying seconds of the game, to take a six point lead, and the final hooter sounds.
This means the Blues have to beat the Ospreys by more than 17 points and what was the score at last year’s Judgement Day V event at Principality Stadium? A 35-17 Blues win, that’s an 18-point differential… so anything is possible!
A Principality Stadium crowd in excess of 50,000 is expected for Judgement Day VI.
Tickets are on-sale now from www.wru.wales/tickets, prices are £10 for each seat in the ground with a £1-per-ticket online booking fee, as well as postage (Print at home etickets are also available), payable at the time of purchase.
*Albeit a big ‘if’
