Cardiff will be favourites
Edinburgh will visit the Cardiff Blues in their first round match of the Heineken Cup on Saturday.
Cardiff believe that their two scrum-halves will be fit to face Edinburgh at the Cardiff City Stadium. Richie Rees has a strained calf while Lloyd Williams missed the Blues last match with a dead leg.
The Welsh will be without British and Irish Lion Jamie Roberts, Gareth Williams and Tom Brown who have long term injuries.
Edinburgh will be without their influential out-half Phil Godman who is out for six months. Chris Patterson will return after recovering from a slight knock he picked up against Leinster in the Magners League.
Mike Blair and Allan Jacobsen are likely to return to the starting line-up after they were used as substitutes in the Scottish team’s Magners League game against Aironi. Simon Webster who has just returned from a long term injury will not feature.
The Cardiff Blues will hope that they can produce the form that saw them beat Edinburgh in the Magners League earlier this season. However, their past history with Edinburgh is poor with the Scottish side winning five of the last seven fixtures.
The Cardiff coach Dai Young said, "We've only beaten them twice out of seven so obviously they're going to come with a lot of confidence," he said. "And why wouldn't they? This is a massive game for us – you've got to win your home games."
Cardiff have been in good form in the Magners League this season having won four of their five opening matches. The Welsh side’s only defeat has come at the hands of Leinster in Dublin, which the Blues lost 34-23.
Since then, they have recorded wins over the Dragons, Treviso and Connaught. They also beat Edinburgh in the opening game of the season by 34-23.
Cardiff will have to deal with far more pressure this season. The Welsh side are expected to do well in the competition.
Young said, "It's not something I'm running away from or trying to suggest isn't the case, I'm really pleased people are starting to fancy us. I'm really pleased people outside our camp recognise us as a quality team.”
In contrast Edinburgh will start the competition as massive underdogs. The side has only managed to reach the knockout stages once in 13 years.
Their form in the Magners League has been poor. They lost their opening three games.
However, they have recorded back to back wins. Their victory against Leinster showed that they can compete at the highest level. Yet, in their last match they returned to form and scraped a 10-9 victory against Aironi in a poor display.
The team relies heavily on Patterson’s goal kicking and will need a massive performance if they are to beat a confident Cardiff at home.
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