AT FACE value, save for local derbies the league doesn’t throw up too many eye-catching fixtures like this. Fifth hosts firsts in a meeting of ambitious capital city clubs and unusually strong selections mean that, with each side well placed atop their Euro pools and girding their loins for a renewal of Heineken Cup action next weekend, both are close to full strength.

All told, there will be 25 Test players on the field come kick-off – nicely primed for the Saturday tea-time slot – and with quite a strong resonance from the Wales-Ireland World Cup quarter-final last October as well.

Four of the Cardiff team started that day in Wellington, as well as the unused scrumhalf Lloyd Williams, as did fully eight of the Leinster side.

Yet if there is a whiff of cordite in the air, it is more liable to emanate from events in early December at the RDS.

Although only five of the under-strength starting line-up (Wales pulled their players in readiness for hosting Australia) which was routed at the RDS start again here, one imagines replays and memories of that six tries to nil beating will be a strong source of motivation this week. That was an embarrassing if almost inevitable type of scoreline for the Blues and one that must have hurt the club’s pride.

Whereas four of the Blues’ Test players are imported, interestingly each of Leinster’s dozen Test players are Irish internationals in what is an entirely native starting XV. A little nod from Joe Schmidt to the dim-witted IRFU hierarchy perhaps and their recent straitjacketed edicts regarding foreign players perhaps?

Jamie Heaslip returns to lead a Leinster team showing 12 changes from the side which started the New Year’s Day win away to Connacht, alongside Seán O’Brien and Kevin McLaughlin, as does Devin Toner in the secondrow and Cian Healy, Seán Cronin and Mike Ross in the frontrow.

In the backs, only the young wingers Dave Kearney and Andrew Conway remain, as Eoin Reddan and Jonathan Sexton return along with Gordon D’Arcy and Fergus McFadden in midfield and Rob Kearney at fullback.

Indeed, it is also worth noting Kearney’s eighth start for Leinster since returning from the World Cup comes – like the previous seven – at fullback as Schmidt again does his bit for the Irish team. Isa Nacewa, who has been played on the wing to accommodate Kearney’s fullback ambitions, is named on a strong-looking bench alongside a couple of other Irish internationals in Isaac Boss and Rhys Ruddock.

For their part, the Blues recall Tom James for injured leading try scorer Alex Cuthbert, who joins Jamie Roberts (knee) on the sidelines, as well as Dan Parks ahead of Ceri Sweeney at outhalf. Up front Welsh captain Sam Warburton and Maama Molitika return to the backrow. Michael Paterson moves to the secondrow in place of the injured Paul Tito, as does Lions’ loosehead Gethin Jenkins.

The Blues remain a mercurial, somewhat underachieving outfit, but are dangerous on bigger occasions especially in their own ground, and Leinster’s status and pedigree demands they are the hunted ones. Evidence of Cardiff’s big-game mentality is their Heineken Cup form, and since losing back-to-back home matches to Munster and Glasgow in the World Cup window, they have won four matches in a row in both competitions at the Cardiff City Stadium.

The bookies are probably not far off the mark in making this a two-point game and the presence of a French referee might also have put a frisson of apprehension in Leinster ranks. But a seven-game winning streak has extended the European champions’ unbeaten run to 13 games and with their international contingent well rested over the festive period, they have a standard higher than anyone else’s so far this season.

CARDIFF BLUES: G Henson; L Halfpenny, C Laulala, G Evans, T James; D Parks, L Williams; G Jenkins, M Breeze, S Andrews, B Davies, M Paterson, M Molitika, S Warburton (capt), X Rush. Replacements: R Williams, J Yapp, S Hobbs, M Cook, J Navidi, R Rees, C Sweeney, R Mustoe.

LEINSTER: R Kearney; D Kearney, F McFadden, G D’Arcy, A Conway; J Sexton, E Reddan; C Healy, S Cronin, M Ross, D Browne, D Toner, K McLaughlin, S O’Brien, J Heaslip (capt). Replacements: A Dundon, H van der Merwe, J Hagan, R Ruddock, L Auva’a, I Boss, I Nacewa, F Carr.

Referee: Marius Mitrea (FIR).

Verdict: Leinster to win.