The Blues travel to Scotland to face an in-form Edinburgh side that have lost just one of their last seven games in the Magners League: 7-11 at home to Munster on February 15th.
Edinburgh won 11-10 when the two teams met at the Arms Park in January and the Blues will be looking to reverse that result to keep themselves in the top 5 of the Magners League, with many of the teams above them still to play each other.
Blues flyer Tom James also returns to the starting line-up, having had an operation to remove his appendix. Outside half Dai Flanagan also returns having recovered from a broken bone in his hand, and is joined in the twenty two by Nick Robinson. Robinson sustained a hip muscle injury against Leicester in November.
Edinburgh squad: Hugo Southwell, Calum MacRae, Andrew Turnbull, John Houston, Ben Cairns, Matt Dey, Nick De Luca, Simon Webster, David Blair, Phil Godman, Ben Meyer, Mike Blair; Gavin Kerr, Augusto Allori, Andrew Kelly, Steve Lawrie, Craig Smith, Sean Crombie, Matt Mustchin, Ben Gissing, Fergus Pringle, Craig Hamilton, Allister Hogg (Captain), Simon Cross, Ross Rennie, David Callam, Fraser McKenzie
Blues: Ben Blair; Jamie Roberts, Tom Shanklin, Gareth Thomas, Tom James; Dai Flanagan, Jason Spice; Gethin Jenkins, Gareth Williams, Taufa’ao Filise, Deiniol Jones, Paul Tito, Maama Molitika, Martyn Williams, Xavier Rush (Captain)
Replacements: Gethin Jenkins, John Yapp, T Rhys Thomas, Scott Morgan, Ben White, Richie Rees, Nicky Robinson, Marc Stcherbina
Referee: Alan Lewis (IRFU)
