Shanklin had an unhappy evening in Toulouse during the Blues’ 41-17 Euro exit and has been given the chance to compose himself with a bench seat on Friday night.
“Tom apologised to the team for his performance. He went out and, for whatever reason, he made some errors that you wouldn’t normally associate with him,” said Blues Assistant Coach Rob Howley.
“Everyone has stinkers. Tom was outstanding for Wales throughout the Grand Slam campaign, but then he goes and has a game like that. That’s sport at the highest level for you. Just look at what happened to Chris Paterson for Gloucester against Munster. He didn’t miss a kick for Scotland during the Rugby World Cup and Six Nations, yet he missed three against Munster that he would normally slot over.
“In the end we felt the scoreline flattered Toulouse and our performance didn’t deserve some of the headlines it received. This is the first season a Blues side has reached the quarter-finals and we are building a team and a culture.
“The important thing is the players learn from their experience in Toulouse and use it to become stronger.”
The Scarlets picked up a bonus point in beating the Blues 35-17 at Stradey Park last month and are just one point behind the Cardiff outfit in the Magners League table.
“We’ve got four games left in the league and it would be great if we could climb up to second or third in the table,” said Howley.
“As a bare minimum we want to win our two remaining home games and if we could finish as runners-up that would be an advance on last season. On top of reaching the last eight in the Heineken Cup for the first time as a Region, that would be real progress.”
With wing Jamie Roberts and prop Gethin Jenkins ruled out through injury, Blues Coach Dai Young has made eight changes to the starting line-up in Toulouse for Friday night. Behind the scrum only Ben Blair, Gareth Thomas, Tom James and Jason Spice survive, while up front there are three survivors: Deiniol Jones, Maama Molitika and Martyn Williams.
Cardiff Blues: B Blair; G Thomas, J Robinson, M Stcherbina, T James; N Robinson, J Spice; J Yapp, TR Thomas, G Powell, D Jones, S Morgan, M Molitika, M Williams (Captain), M Lewis
Replacements: T Filise, G Williams, P Tito, X Rush, R Rees, D Flannagan, T Shanklin
