Danny Wilson insists Cardiff Blues can secure victory at Connacht on Friday, as they head into a busy and vital block of games over the festive period.
Following two weeks of Anglo-Welsh Cup action, Wilson’s men travel to Galway to face the Guinness PRO12 defending champions.
The Blues bounced back from derby defeats with a victory over Treviso in their last PRO12 encounter and believes his side can take confidence from early season triumphs on the road.
“We have an opportunity to go to Connacht, the champions, and it would be great for us to pick up a win that we haven’t had there in a while,” said Wilson.
“Having said that, we hadn’t won at Treviso, Munster or Zebre in a while and we managed to do that. We will be looking for another away win, but we know it doesn’t get any tougher than Connacht.
“It’s the start of ‘block two’ for us now that includes games against Connacht, Ulster, Bath twice, Dragons and Scarlets over Christmas. It’s a huge block.
“Block one was 10 games of rugby, including two in Europe, and we won seven out of ten games. It was a period that was relatively successful. The disappointments were the couple of derbies we didn’t perform to a level we wanted to.”
With the Anglo-Welsh Cup giving a platform for some of the region’s most promising players to gain experience, a return to Guinness PRO12 action will see many first team players return to camp.
Wilson reckons the break will have a positive effect , following a heavy early-season schedule, and is pleased with the preparations ahead of Friday’s clash.
“The squad we currently have in camp have trained really well, with some of them having had a break over the Anglo-Welsh Cup period, which they needed to recover from ten straight games on the bounce.
“The group that have been off have had time to do some work on conditioning, skills and a game-plan for Connacht. They’ve come back as a whole group and trained well over the past two days in pretty horrendous conditions.
“It would be nice to go to Connacht, where they don’t lose many international players, with a couple of our international boys back."