By GTD
November 30 2005

The Blues are coming to The Madstad, but don’t be glum ! At the beginning of this season things looked rosy for the Cardiff Blues. A place in the Heineken Cup, an Anglo Welsh Cup place secured and a strong squad to compete in the Celtic League.

A couple of months in and they are 9th (out of 11) in the Celtic League, an extremely slim statistical chance of progressing in the Anglo Welsh Cup and only 1 win registered in the HC so far against a poor Leeds.

At the beginning of this season things looked optimistic for London Irish. A new Director of rugby in place with the main aim being that elusive place in the Heineken Cup with what appeared to be a strong squad to compete in the Guinness Premiership. A couple of months in and the league position would be considered healthy by most supporters and the European tournament still offers a route to the HC.

For London Irish this fixture probably added some spice to the supporters – a different team to watch, laced with Welsh internationals. Then Wasps and Sarries ‘happened’ and this really risks becoming a non-event. Add to that the confirmation that Mr Lomu won’t be appearing on our hallowed turf and Christmas Shopping becomes a more attractive prospect.

Should it though?

The Blues had 8 players named in the Welsh squad for the autumn internationals. This is an excellent opportunity to see some of those players perform in a game where Cardiff could statistically still make it to the semis (although extremely unlikely). It is also unofficially rumoured to be a good opportunity to see some of our stars of the future getting a run out against some good opposition.

Form into this game was in favour of Irish with 5 wins in a row, that was of course until the ‘thrashing that wasn’t’ at the hands of Leicester. Can the boys lift their heads after that?

Cardiff have lost 4 and won 2 in their last 6. More interestingly losing to Munster, Leinster, Ulster and bottom placed Connacht through their season so far. Let’s hope the ‘losing to Irish teams’ theme continues.

In attempting to make this fixture more interesting I stumbled across Claire – admittedly it may appeal to our more male readers but I’m sure we wish her all the best.

Claire!!
Note: The Cardiff Blues website seems to mess with the link - if you get their "splash screen", enter the site and look for the above picture in their "news" section

Irish by 6