Coaches Gareth Baber and Justin Burnell have named a young team for their first LV=Cup match of the season, against Newcastle away, on Saturday 15 October, 6.30pm kick off.
Reflecting on last weekend’s match, Baber said, “Certain aspects of our performance in Aironi were pleasing, in terms of putting pressure on them when we had ball in hand, we’d looked at areas to improve and executed them well in the first half.”
“Obviously we were a bit disappointed that we let the tries in.”
“We wanted to keep out the opposition and unfortunately we put ourselves in a situation where we’ve given them four tries.”
With the six weeks of RaboDirect Pro 12 window at an end, Baber feels that there were one or two games that the team didn’t perform.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that the Glasgow game was one where we targeted in getting a win and we failed badly.”
“That was our biggest failure in six matches. Had we got those points we’d be in the top two or three. We find ourselves in fourth place, which isn’t bad when you take into account the players we have to come back into system.”
“I suppose another game missed was Munster at home. When we reflected on it, it was a game that we played some good stuff and maybe tried to play a bit too much rugby.”
“We had three decisions referred to the TMO, a penalty under the sticks and a last gasp forward pass that could have won us the game.”
“There have been aspects that have been frustrating but there have been some real positives come out of the first six weeks. It’s our aim to keep that going.”
Looking ahead to the LV=Cup match against Newcastle, Baber added, “I think it’s important that some of the players that haven’t featured in the first five or six games are given the opportunity to push for the main squad.”
“This is certainly what these two games are about. We are ambitious as a group and we want to make sure that we are pushing everybody all the time, and this is the next phase of pushing on.”
“It is a young team that we’ve selected, but it’s full of talent as well and that’s what we want to see as coaches.”
“In the summer we invited players who are in the academy, 18 and 19 year olds, to train with us.”
“They’ve impressed not only the coaching and conditioning staff but the senior players as well.”
“Players like Cory Allen, Rhys Patchell, Rhys Downes and Harry Robinson, although he doesn’t play this weekend, are pushing for first team places.”
“It is exciting. We want to see how far they’ve come and it gives us a good idea of where we think they are going to end up.”
“Newcastle have had a tough time of it over the last few weeks as obviously the Aviva is a very competitive league.”
“I imagine they will want to create some momentum and that can happen in tournaments like this, where you can go on a bit of a run, and then it lends itself to your League campaign.”
“I think they’d want to target this game against us, especially playing at home, but what we have to do as a group is make sure it doesn’t happen, or afford them that opportunity and get positives that we want out of the match.”
Cardiff Blues 15. Dan Fish 14. Richard Mustoe 13. Owen Williams 12. Cory Allen 11. Adam Thomas 10. Rhys Patchell 9. Rhys Downes 8. Luke Hamilton 7. Thomas Young 6. Ellis Jenkins 5. James Downes (c) 4. Cory Hill 3. Ryan Harford 2. Ryan Tyrrell 1. Nathan Trevett
Replacements: 16. Rhys Williams 17. Jamie Corsi 18. Thomas Davies 19. Matthew Screech 20. Rhys Shellard 21. Lewis Jones 22. Lewis Williams 23. Richard Smith
