Cardiff Blues v Munster

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So Munster come to town after Cardiff have been royally spanked by the boys in blue. Will they be motivated or will they lack confidence. They will be without 8 players. The big name trio of Jamie Roberts, Sam Warburton and Leigh Halfpenny will all miss the game as well as wingers Alex Cuthbert and Harry Robinson, scrum half Lloyd Williams, prop Scott Andrews and second row Bradley Davies.

CJ Stander has arrived in Munster but is not included:

Cardiff Blues:

01 Campese Ma'afu
02 Rhys Williams
03 Taufa'ao Filise
04 Lou Reed
05 James Down
06 Robin Copeland
07 Josh Navidi
08 Andre Pretorius
09 Lewis Jones
10 Jason Tovey
11 Tom James
12 Dafydd Hewitt
13 Gavin Evans
14 Tom Williams
15 Dan Fish

16 Andy Kyriacou
17 Sam Hobbs
18 Ryan Harford
19 Macauley Cook
20 Luke Hamilton
21 Rob Lewis
22 Ceri Sweeney
23 Owen Williams

Munster Rugby:
01 Marcus Horan
02 Mike Sherry
03 Stephen Archer
04 Dave Foley
05 Billy Holland
06 Dave O'Callaghan
07 Sean Dougall
08 Tommy O'Donnell
09 Duncan Williams
10 Ronan O'Gara
11 Luke O'Dea
12 Ian Keatley
13 Casey Laulala
14 Doug Howlett
15 Felix Jones

16 Damien Varley
17 John Ryan
18 Wian du Preez
19 Ian Nagle
20 Paddy Butler
21 Peter Stringer
22 Danny Barnes
23 Johne Murphy

Cardiff fans what team do you expect to see out and how would you feel about facing that Munster team?

ROG was okay, his pass is nowhere near what it once was and you can see he has lost a lot of distance in his kicks, that happens as you age. An okay performance, the Blues were absolute shoite conceding a try like Laulala's off first phase ball is absolutely pathetic.


Archere did pretty well in fairness he has been poor before this so his inclusion in the Irish squad surprises me somewhat.

I thought the Blues would do the Scarlets and Ospreys a favour by beating Munster, but some shocking one on one tackling let them down.

I think big Phil will have to start getting tough on players who bottle out of tackles, they get paid well to put their bodies on the line.

Defence and scrum are there issues.

They are a good squad beyond that.

Recorded the game i just watched it, and i tell you what well done Blues.
That was a cracking Munster team they played against and all but won the game, a few weak tackles and a bit of aimless kicking let them down.
When you look at the big picture thou not a bad result for the Blues.

Blues have lost some world class players through injury, retirement or moved,
it was never going to e easy, onward's and upward's.

viewtothegym wrote:Recorded the game i just watched it, and i tell you what well done Blues.
That was a cracking Munster team they played against and all but won the game, a few weak tackles and a bit of aimless kicking let them down.
When you look at the big picture thou not a bad result for the Blues.

Blues have lost some world class players through injury, retirement or moved,
it was never going to e easy, onward's and upward's.

I agree, it was a step in the right direction. The Blues won't recover over night, but players giving their all is all we can ask for at the moment. First up tackling need to improve though, along with some of Davies' selection decisions.

Glad to hear some reasoned views.

I agree there that they'll be a decent team in the next few months.

Jeez View, Wales606 etc I actually thought that was a poor enough Munster team with a lot of basic errors...

I was impressed by the Blues competitiveness and how they coped with a good Munster side after what happened against Leinster - thought Fish, Navidi and Copeland (1st half) had very good games.

But to lose the game because of some poor defending and 3 (easy) missed tackles must be a real kick in the teeth, especially after Blues had seemed to have the game won.

Still a better performance and seemingly something to build on

I think if Blues had a solid scrum and stopped with the aimless kicking game phil davies has adopted they would become much more competitive. Obviously missing first up tackles is a no non it top class rugby but that can be rectified with putting the hours in on the training ground.

Liam the kicks wouldn't look so stupid if the defence could follow it up and not miss so many tackles.

I agree but the aimless kicking doesn't help either. I thought Fish kicked well but in a few games, the amount of time we've needlessly kicked away possession and handed the initiative back to the opposition is beyond. Bit like Wales a few years back.

Fish looks great, really looking forward to seeing him get some game time over the next four weeks.

DOD wrote:Jeez View, Wales606 etc I actually thought that was a poor enough Munster team with a lot of basic errors...

It was a decent Munster team. A mixture of young and old.

profitius wrote:

DOD wrote:Jeez View, Wales606 etc I actually thought that was a poor enough Munster team with a lot of basic errors...

It was a decent Munster team. A mixture of young and old.

No JJ Hanrahan though