John Mulvihill has warned his side to expect a hungry and wounded Glasgow Warriors outfit on Sunday, as the Scottish side look for their second win of the season.
Both sides head into the encounter sitting in fourth place in their conferences - with the Warriors picking up one win from their opening six Guinness PRO14 fixtures.
However, the Australian expects an entertaining but gritty contest at Rodney Parade on Sunday, as his side seek an advantage in the race for a top three finish.
"It's always dangerous to play against a team that's had a couple run of losses. But if you look closely at their games, they play good rugby," said the head coach.
"They're struggling a little bit with their depth through injuries and international call-ups, but physically they matched or bettered Munster last week up until the 72 minute.
"They had a yellow card at that point and Munster ran away with it, so it will be a massive challenge for us again.
"On the back of making 251 tackles our training week will be pretty light this week so we can have the boys bouncing into Sunday.
"I expect a lot of contests around the set-piece, a lot of driving mauls and a lot of balls in the air with massive kick-chase pressure.
"There will be a bit of niggle and a bit of energy. I'm sure it will be one of those ding-dong clashes and we're looking forward to it.
"We've had some really good games against them over the last two seasons. We played them in the Heineken Cup in my first season - and four times overall - and then played them last season once as well.
"So I'm looking forward to seeing them again on Sunday.
"It's fourth against fourth, but depending on what happens between Leinster and Scarlets we could be second or third in our pool.
"We're in a really tough conference and wins are hard to come by for everyone. We want to keep in touch and we always prepare to win. We're looking for a big performance where we get our details right.
"We want to finish off an 80 minute performance, not 65, and hopefully get a good win which would put us in good stead.
"We've dangled the carrot a bit, and if they get a good result then they'll have a week off. The staff will be making a detailed review to see where we are with all departments and then set our targets for the next block of fixtures."
Cardiff Blues head into the clash on the back of a 40-5 defeat against defending champions Leinster, who stretched their unbeaten streak to 26 games in the Championship.
With the perspective of a host of senior stars missing for Wales' Capital Region, Mulvihill was proud of his youngsters who stepped up in Dublin, but wants his side to start enjoying more territory and possession in games.
Mulvihill added: "Against a big team like that we didn't start particularly well but managed to hold it together for 65 minutes. However, their quality came through.
"It was a great experience for us, and a great learning, and we need to be at the right areas of the pitch and hanging onto the ball a bit better.
"There's a few tweaks to our kicking game and where we played from, but our discipline was pretty good and the amount of turnovers conceded was quite low.
"But you can't afford to cough up eight first or second-phase possessions because you won't mount any pressure on the opposition.
"So we're disappointed with parts of the performance but I'm not going to publicly bag any of our players for a loss like that.
"We put a lot of effort into that game and had two guys on debut, and two guys playing their second game. So to go out there and give it a good go, I'm happy with them as a coach.
"As a coaching group we'd rather win trophies for scoring tries rather than having the best jackals or highest tackle count in the league.
"So that was a real question to the coaching and playing group on our first day in this week - how do we defend less and attack more?
"The fundamentals that came out of that, and the answers we had, were pretty good from the players and staff, and were reflected in some of the clips we showed in the review.
"I hope to see a big change in us this week."