Edinburgh are in Wales to face Cardiff looking to get back into the top eight and keep their hopes of a play-off up. 

Here, Kevin Millar takes a look ahead to the game.

KO 3.05 at Cardiff Arms Park
Saturday 27th April 2024
Live on Premier Sports 1

  • Edinburgh are looking for a clean sweep of the four Welsh regions for the first time in their history, having already beaten Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets (twice).
  • The capital club did win five out of five against sides from Wales in 2019/20 but didn’t play Ospreys that season.
  • Cardiff’s URC campaign could have looked very different with just a handful more scores. They have lost ten times in the league during 2023/24 but have collected a losing bonus point in nine of those fixtures, where their average margin of defeat has been 4.5 points.
  • They had half-time leads versus Ospreys, Connacht and Glasgow but couldn’t convert any of them to wins. They lost to 79th minute penalties against both Benetton and Ulster. There was also a draw against Zebre where the Italian side scored a converted try with 85 minutes on the clock.
  • In terms of previous appearances for the club, this is the most experienced matchday 23 named by Edinburgh for a fixture this season (1,854). It is also their oldest lineup of 2023/24 (average age 29.3 years).
  • There are 15 Test players in the home ranks with 19 for the visitors. Edinburgh’s internationals boast 587 caps collectively though, which is 439 more than their Welsh opponents on Saturday afternoon.

Teams:

Scotland Rugby News:

(players in CAPITALS are full capped internationals, numbers in brackets are previous appearances for Cardiff / Edinburgh)

Head to Head:

Scotland Rugby News:

Edinburgh Introductions:

There will be a hearty welcome awaiting Emiliano Boffelli among the Edinburgh hierarchy. The return of such a class player, after missing the last five fixtures, would be a boon at the best of times but especially at this stage of the season and with his side struggling for available back 3 players.

Matchday Milestones:

Chris Dean is racking up the landmarks of late after turning 30 a month ago. It was his 50th substitute appearance last time out. Against Cardiff he will bring up 150 total games played for Edinburgh. The next time he’s in the XV will mean a century of starts for the centre / emergency winger.

The Bens, Vellacott and Healy, will be the first Edinburgh players to hit 20 matches played this season. They have only missed a single fixture each, with the stand off playing every single minute (1,120) of the club’s URC campaign to date.

Dave Cherry, Matt Currie and Wes Goosen aren’t far off this mark, having each featured in 19 games.

Focal Point:

Eighteen minutes into this encounter, WP Nel will hit 12,000 minutes played for Edinburgh – a testament to the veteran prop’s longevity and consistency.

It’s worth noting that more than half of his minutes played for the club came in his first four seasons (6,208 minutes) before they really had to share him with Scotland (5,764 minutes in the last eight seasons).

At 37 years of age (and turning 38 on Tuesday) he is still a huge contributor and is on course for just his second 1,000 minutes plus season for Edinburgh since 2014/15.

There have been a few players over the years who it has seemed would be irreplaceable for Edinburgh. Nel definitely falls into that category and a big challenge lies ahead for the cohort of tighthead props who will attempt to fill the number three jersey in the coming seasons.

URC form:

Scotland Rugby News:

Track record...

...away to Cardiff during the PRO12/PRO14/URC era:

  • 4 wins
  • 6 losses
  • 0 Try BPs
  • 2 Losing BPs
  • 18 points out of a possible 50 (36%)

Previous match-up v Cardiff in Wales:

Officials:

Referee: Frank Murphy (IRFU, 84th league game)
AR1: Mackel English (WRU)
AR2: Elgan Williams (WRU)
TMO: Olly Hodges (IRFU)

Mr Murphy’s regular season record for 2023/24:

  • Matches – 12
  • Average penalty count – 18.5 per game
  • Home side penalties conceded percentage – 46.4%
  • Average card count – 0.6 per game
  • Penalties per card – 31.7

This will be the fifth occasion that Mr Muphy has refereed Cardiff this season, as well as being his third outing at the Arms Park.

By contrast, this will be his first time taking charge of Edinburgh since October 2022, when three cards (one red, two yellow) for the Stormers couldn’t prevent a 34 – 18 defeat for the capital club.

The experienced official’s card count has been remarkably low during the current campaign. After averaging 1.4 cards per game in 2022/23 he has issued just two yellows in his last five matches.

Additional ref stats from: https://www.cardiffrfcfans.com/analysis/referee_heads.php?countryID=3