Dai Young insists his side must aim for higher than just being the 'best team in Wales' as they prepare for back-to-back United Rugby Championship encounters with Scarlets.
The Blue and Blacks travel to Llanelli on Saturday before welcoming Dwayne Peel’s men to the capital the following week as we head into the business end of the season.
And while the Director of Rugby acknowledges that there is a unique edge to derby encounters, he believes his side must focus on the bigger picture at play.
“When you play against each other, the rivalry is there, the bragging rights are there and you want to get one over your mates,” explained the former Wales prop.
“But we have a responsibility to demonstrate high skill levels, play with intensity and blow away the doom and gloom that people have thrown our way.
“But just being the best in Wales isn’t something that hugely excites me. It’s something everyone would rather be, of course, as opposed to being the worst.
“But the big thing for me is that we want to be competitive, playing in Europe season-on-season. We want to be in the top eight. Those are our goals and along the way you need to beat the other Welsh teams.
“Everyone likes to play against local rivals, no matter where you are, but we haven’t been higher than seventh in 10 years.
“You then chuck four South African teams into that, which can only make our jobs harder. So we need to achieve far more than what we have over the last 10 years to achieve it.
“But you’ve got to try and give it your best shot. Beating the Welsh teams along the way is just a bonus.
“But it’s not the focus for us. There’s no point winning the derbies if you’re not winning other games.
“I’ve got huge respect for them as a club in terms of history and tradition. We know we’ll need to be at our best to go there and get the win and that’s what we’re going there for.
“It’s quite a unique experience because the week after they’ll be coming back down here.
“But there is too much focus purely on the Welsh derbies. Of course we want to win but it’s about being in the top eight, that’s what you should focus on.”
Cardiff head into the clash on the back of a thrilling comeback win over Glasgow Warriors last week, as they look to build momentum in the latter stages of the campaign.
Young was impressed with how his side bounced back from a disappointing opening 50 minutes at the Arms Park, learning lessons from previous weeks.
Young added: “Our best performances have certainly been at home and we haven’t measure up to the same levels when away.
“That has to change, but form always seems to go out of the window when it comes to derbies.
“Sometimes home advantage does as well. These players know each other inside-out.
“We know they’re a real quality team who will want to win on their own patch. We’ll also need to be a lot better.
“Even if you look at last week, for 50 minutes we were outplaying, to be fair to Glasgow.
“One thing we have struggled with, especially away from home, is when things don’t go to plan we let it bother us too much.
“It drags us down and you can see the energy, enthusiasm and confidence draining out of the team.
“We try to talk about the fact these things will happen. We will have periods in the game without momentum and where things aren’t going well.
“But we can’t dwell on that too much and need to move onto the next thing, and that’s what pleased me on the weekend.
“That’s something we haven’t done away from home - when things haven’t gone well it’s bothered us too much.”