The Blues have been drawn in Pool Six alongside French giants Toulon and Montpellier, along with Sunday’s opponents Sale Sharks.
The match at Salford City Stadium kicks off at 12.45pm, with both sides having won two and lost two in their previous Heineken Cup encounters against each other, winning their home matches.
The Blues welcome back Alex Cuthbert in the backs in place of Harry Robinson. There are four changes in the forwards with Sam Warburton, Bradley Davies, Marc Breeze and Tafa’ao Filise all returning to the starting XV, having missed the match against Glasgow last Friday.
Speaking ahead of the match, Phil Davies, said,
“We have enjoyed a great tradition in the tournament as the Blues.
“We're one of the top seeds and are very eager to protect that status, so we're keen to do well in the competition as a whole.
“It will be very direct, forward battle on Sunday.
“There are areas which we can improve on, particularly the consistency with which we perform all the moves.
“We need the players to deliver that for us and we need to make sure that we give them the confidence to do that.
“We need to encourage them to play positively and get those key fundamentals right.”
Sale Sharks v Cardiff Blues
Sunday 14 October 12.45pm kick off, Salford City Stadium
15 Leigh Halfpenny 14 Alex Cuthbert 13 Gavin Evans 12 Jamie Roberts 11 Tom James 10 Ceri Sweeney 9 Lloyd Williams
8 Andries Pretorius (c) 7 Sam Warburton 6 Josh Navidi 5 Lou Reed 4 Bradley Davies 3 Benoit Bourrust 2 Marc Breeze 1 Tafa’ao Filise
16 Andi Kyriacou 17 Nathan Trevett 18 Scott Andrews 19 James Down 20 Robin Copeland 21 Lewis Jones 22 Gareth Davies 23 Dan Fish