Cardiff Blues head coach Danny Wilson is confident his side can overcome the weight of history, and Leinster’s home advantage, to keep their GUINNESS PRO12 momentum going at the RDS Arena on Saturday evening.

The Blues opened up their GUINNESS PRO12 campaign with an impressive 61-13 win over Zebre last weekend to sit top of the early table but now face a Leinster side they have only beaten once in their last 17 attempts.

Making the Welsh outfit’s job even more daunting is the fact they have only ever recorded one victory over their Irish opponents in Dublin – back in March 2004 – although the Leinstermen may head into the clash low on confidence after suffering a 16-9 defeat to Edinburgh at Meggetland a week ago.

And while Wilson insists his troops will head into the game as second favourites, he is anticipating a memorable 80 minutes.

“Leinster get a fantastic home crowd, they are well supported and they get momentum from the backing they enjoy, so it should be a great atmosphere,” he said.

“Whichever way you look at it we go there as underdogs, even though we come off from a good win and they come off from a loss. But what a great place it would be to go and get a win.

“There are not too many changes to the side this weekend, for obvious reasons, because we had a good performance at home and set some records.

“We are missing a few players with bumps and knocks, but we are fairly settled and we go into the game with a little bit of momentum from the win and confidence.”

Wilson makes three changes to the starting XV that ran 11 tries – the joint-most in PRO12 history – against Zebre as front-rowers Kristian Dacey and Craig Mitchell come in for Ethan Lewis and Taufa’ao Filise respectively.

And the third change comes in the backs where Owen Jenkins replaces the injured Tom James on the wing.
Leinster are trying to avoid starting a league campaign with back-to-back defeats for the first time since 2003-04 and coach Leo Cullen has made four changes to the team that lost to Edinburgh.

Garry Ringrose will make his debut on the wing in place of Darragh Fanning while Ross Molony comes into the second row for the injured Tom Denton.

In the back row, Dominic Ryan and Josh van der Flier get the nod in place of Dan Leavy and injured captain Kevin McClaughlin, so full-back Isa Nacewa will wear the skipper’s armband for the first time.

And if Cullen’s troops are to avoid just a second defeat at the RDS Arena since March 2013 when they face the Blues, scrum-half Luke McGrath is adamant they must cut out the turnovers that plagued them in Edinburgh.

“The main thing we did last week is give up cheap ball,” McGrath told the Evening Herald.

“If we do that against Cardiff, they have players, like [Rhys] Patchell, and pace out wide, like [Dan] Fish, who can hurt you from anywhere.

“It is just important to keep hold of the ball, not give them counter-attack ball of our unforced errors.

“Defensively, I thought we did pretty well at stages last week. It is important to keep that up this week.”

At RDS Arena, 5:15pm.

Referee: Ben Whitehouse (WRU, 8th competition game)
Assistant Referees: Eddie Hogan-O’Connell, Jonathan Peak (both IRFU)
Citing Commissioner: Peter Ferguson (IRFU)
TMO: Seamus Flannery (IRFU)

Live on Sky Sports

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