There was a time when any Welsh region would tremble at the prospect of having to travel to play away in Ireland. But the Scarlets will be able to approach their Champions Cup semi-final against three-times champions Leinster with a fair degree of hope given they went to Dublin last season and beat them at the RDS in the semi-finals of the Guinness PRO12 with 14 men.

Danny Wilson has paid tribute to his coaching team for helping mastermind Cardiff Blues’ march to the European Challenge Cup semi-finals. The Blues head coach – who is leaving at the end of the season – plotted the 20-6 victory over Edinburgh at Murrayfield that has set up a home semi-final against French club Pau on the weekend of April 20-22. But Wilson has praised the contributions of backs coach Matt Sherratt, assistant Richard Hodges, and defence consultant Shaun Edwards for putting their team one step from the final of Europe’s second tier tournament.

Cardiff Blues coach Danny Wilson has warned his team they will need to be up for a scrap when they face pugnacious Richard Cockerill’s Edinburgh on Saturday evening. The Blues are at Murrayfield for their European Challenge Cup quarter-final on the back of five successive victories and a feelgood vibe unfamiliar for almost a decade at the Arms Park.

March is normally the mournful month for Welsh rugby when the regions reflect on what might have been. Instead, the Scarlets can still prove themselves the best team in Europe, while the Cardiff Blues also have a chance for silverware. Robin Davey says there are encouraging signals for both. One from the west and one from the east as the Scarlets and Cardiff Blues fly the flag for Wales in Europe this Easter weekend. This is where it gets serious as the two competitions reach the knock-out stages, the Scarlets at home against La Rochelle in the senior tournament in what is sure to be a full-blooded quarter-final, while Cardiff Blues travel to Murrayfield to take on high-flying Edinburgh at the same stage in the Challenge Cup competition.

Alex Cuthbert has become used to the odd brickbat or two during his seven years in the Cardiff Blues and Wales teams, but his switch to Exeter Chiefs next season might mean a smoother ride in the future. His three-year deal with the English Premiership champions will mean an end to his international career for the moment, because he is 13 caps short of the required 60-cap threshold to be considered from a club outside Wales, but the obvious benefit is working under Rob Baxter. The Chiefs director of rugby has created an environment that has produced more international players in the past four years than possibly any other club and his teams have delivered plenty of silverware as well.  

Danny Wilson believes his Cardiff Blues team are rolling into form at exactly the right time as they chase two trophies. The Blues coach – who is leaving to join Wasps at the end of the season – paid tribute to his players after what he called a “dominant” performance in beating Ulster 35-17 at the Arms Park on Saturday. The victory was the Blues’ fifth in succession and leaves them just three points off third-place in Conference A of the Guinness Pro14.

Cardiff Blues have confirmed that John Mulvihill has been appointed to take over from Danny Wilson as head coach. It brings to an end a long and winding route for the region who believed they had both Geordan Murphy and Jim Mallinder lined up, only for those appointments to fall through. Following Wilson’s decision to move on at the end of the season, the search for a successor was undertaken in conjunction with the Welsh Rugby Union.

Danny Wilson insists his buoyant Cardiff Blues will chase the teams above them in the Guinness Pro14 Conference A table – rather than look over their shoulder. The Blues’ 25-18 victory at home to Munster at the weekend has strengthened their chances of getting back into the European Champions Cup next season. Three teams from each conference qualify, but that does not include the South African sides, so the Blues’ current fourth spot would be enough to get them back into the premier European tournament.

Cardiff Blues will face controversial Munster signing Gerbrandt Grobler when they host the Irish side in the Guinness Pro14 at the Arms Park on Saturday. Grobler will make his first start for the province, following weeks of debate in Ireland over the merits of signing the South African who served a two-year ban after failing a drugs test. The former Racing 92 second row has been a divisive figure in Irish rugby since Munster decided to give him a contract despite his suspension from 2014 to 2016, when he was playing for the Stormers in South African Super Rugby.

Wales U20 have made seven changes to their starting line-up to face England at Kingston Park on Friday (19:45). Prop Rhys Carre, Man of the Match in the 36-3 win against Scotland last Friday, and Cardiff Blues hooker Iestyn Harris are this week joined by a new front row partner in Ospreys tighthead Rhys Henry.

Coach Rowland Phillips has picked 10 uncapped players in his Wales Women Six Nations squad. Phillips has named the new faces as part of a squad of 36 with potential debutantes among forwards and backs. The new players are Ospreys trio Natalia John, Amy Thomas and Cara Hope, Scarlets’ Beth Lewis and Cardiff Blues’ Awen Prysorin the forwards; Ospreys’ Alecs Donovan, Cardiff Blues’ Hannah Bluck, and Scarlets trio Jade Knight, Lisa Neumann and Angharad De Smet among the backs.  

This time last year Jack Roberts was in Paris playing Champions Cup rugby with Leicester Tigers against Dan Carter’s Racing 92 superstars. Twelve months on the north Bangor-born, Llandovery College educated centre will be hoping to kick-start his Cardiff Blues career with an appearance against Leinster A in the British & Irish Cup at Sardis Road. It is not the route into the big-time in Welsh rugby that Roberts had been hoping for after returning home from the Tigers. Injuries have restricted him to a mere 22 minutes of first-team action at Blues after he suffered a knee injury on his Guinness PRO14 debut against Munster in September.