The Blues are strong favourites to overcome the Dragons but Mulvihill has warned his side not to underestimate their old foes.
“Our start will be a major focus for us because it’s always vital to start well,” he said.
“The last two times we played the Dragons we were behind 12-0 after 20 minutes. We’ve taken some good momentum and confidence out of the Saracens game.
“We said after the game that in our first training session this week we had to hit the ground running and we’ve done that. The boys did their homework and they’re ready to go.
“I can’t wait for my first home derby and we’ve got a pretty strong team coming in with not a lot of changes from last week. The Dragons had a good win a few weeks ago against Edinburgh and they’ve faced some tough teams in Europe.
“When you go through their squad there’s some pretty tidy players there. They’ve got an international back-row, an international front-row and some international outside backs.
“Where they’ve probably missed out is having that gelling together as a 15 but they’ve played some mighty opposition over the last few weeks. They’ll be match hardened and they’ll come with a plan to beat us this week. I think they will be very resilient.”
Despite being out of contention for a Champions Cup quarter-final spot the Blues are very much alive when it comes to the PRO14. And Mulvihill is confident has challenged his side to have a crack at making the PRO14 play-off’s.
“Our goal this year has always been to stay in the top tier of Europe and to get to the play-off’s of the PRO14,” he said.
“That’s still within our grasp and we aren’t far away. It’s still in our hands because the two teams who are just above us, Ospreys and Connacht, we play twice over the next few months.
“But that’s down the track and we need to make sure we win this weekend which will also give us some momentum heading into the Scarlets game.”
Meanwhile, Mulvihill has named Kristian Dacey as captain until the end of the season with Ellis Jenkins on the side-lines for the foreseeable future.
“We’re happy for him to take up those reins for the foreseeable future,” said a Blues statement.
“The boys are happy and they’ll get behind him and support him.”
