John Mulvihill is excited to kick off the festive season as Cardiff Blues open their European Challenge Cup campaign against Newcastle Falcons on Friday.
Following the trip to Kingston Park, Wales’ Capital Region will host Stade Francais at Rodney Parade next weekend before attention turns to a trio of festive derbies against fellow Welsh sides.
The Falcons have made a perfect start on their return to the Gallagher Premiership, racking up three wins from three with victories over Bath, Sale Sharks and Wasps leading them to second place in the table.
Mulvihill has been boosted by the return of Cardiff Blues’ international contingent in the build-up to Friday’s clash and has been pleased to see plenty of zip in training this week, as they prepare to take on the in-form Newcastle.
“They’ve certainly brought a lot of energy and excitement into the group. They bounced into day one and it was good for those boys to connect with their mates again,” said the head coach.
“The boys are looking forward to it. Newcastle have started their competition fantastically, and returned to top flight rugby with three wins.
“I’m sure they’ll have the core of that group playing against us, with a few boys given a chance.
“They’re well coached, playing well and I’m sure they’ll be really confident.
“The quality of training has gone through the roof over the last two days and I’m looking forward to see how we perform on Friday night against a very good Newcastle team.
“The boys had a couple of days after the disappointment against Glasgow, and everyone has come in refreshed and are really looking forward to starting well in this competition.
“We want to build momentum that we can then use in the derbies. Our form in games last year led us to perform really well in some of the derbies last year.
“Playing in Europe is exciting but it’s about kicking off this festive season with those big derbies on the horizon as well.
“We might change our team around a little bit over these next couple of weeks to make sure we’ve got guys with good game time leading into that game against Dragons on Boxing Day.
“Once we get through Christmas, we can re-assess where we are and hopefully we’ll get our last game at the Arms Park against Newcastle, and everyone will be wanting to get on the pitch that day.”
Cardiff Blues are two-times winners of this competition, famously beating Toulon and Gloucester in 2010 and 2018 respectively.
While they were knocked out at the pool stage last season, Mulvihill insists the squad are fired up as they begin their bid for a third European title.
“We’ve got good history in this competition, and have won it a couple of times now. But last season we let ourselves down, primarily in the home game against Leicester where a draw would’ve probably got us through to a quarter final against Toulon,” added the Australian.
“Unfortunately we slipped up in the last minute of play and didn’t manage to feel that night and Scarlets got the opportunity.
“It’s a competition that we need to start well. We’ve got a strong team going out.
“If we get a good result, we’ll come back home to play Stade and then set ourselves up for the derbies.
“The competition structure is a little bit differently this year, with less games, so you need to win the majority of those and then by the luck of the draw you have to see who drops down from the Champions Cup.”