Connacht 18 - 16 Cardiff Blues

“I think our performance against Munster was far more spirited and far more together than our match against Edinburgh, where we looked totally disjointed. Having said that, our primary possession especially in the line out just wasn’t good enough and also our play in the contact area needs to improve. These are two massive issues that we have to address. We find it difficult to get into our game at the minute because we are not winning quality ball and when we do win it we are not holding on to it. It’s as simple as that really. Until we sort those two areas out we are going to struggle.

Connacht are a very abrasive team and very confident at home. It always seems to be windy over in Galway and they play the conditions well. They are a very difficult team to beat over in Ireland as the Ospreys found on the opening weekend. If you look back at last year, if I’m being honest it was a game that we sneaked right at the end. We are under no illusions we always find it difficult over there. Where we are at the moment I feel the next two matches are massive games for us. We want to get the win under our belt and then we face the Scarlets at home. We start with Connacht, who are a difficult team for any side to face at the Sportsground but I feel we have enough quality to win. However, we have to make sure we match that quality with the desire, hunger and accuracy to get the right result.”

Cardiff Blues: 15 Ben Blair; 14 Leigh Halfpenny; 13 Gareth Thomas; 12 Jamie Roberts; 11 Chris Czekaj; 10 Ceri Sweeney; 9 Richie Rees; 1 John Yapp; 2 Gareth Williams; 3 Taufa’ao Filise; 4 Bradley Davies; 5 Paul Tito (c); 6 Maama Molitika; 7 Sam Warburton; 8 Xavier Rush
 
Replacements: 16 Gary Powell; 17 T Rhys Thomas; 18 Deiniol Jones; 19 Andy Powell; 20 Gareth Cooper; 21 Sam Norton-Knight; 22 Gavin Evans

Connacht: 15 Gavin Duffy; 14 Brian Tuohy; 13 Troy Nathan; 12 Keith Matthews; 11 Fionn Carr; 10 Miah Nikora; 9 Frank Murphy; 1 Brett Wilkinson; 2 Sean Cronin; 3 Jamie Hagan; 4 Andrew Browne; 5 Bernie Upton; 6 John Muldoon (c); 7 Ray Ofisa; 8 Mike McComish

Replacements: 16 Adrian Flavin; 17 Ronan Loughney; 18 Mike McCarthy; 19 Johnny O’Connor; 20 Conor O’Loughlin; 21 Ian Keatley; 22 Aidan Wynne