Last year Gustafson’s side went to Cyncoed and snatched a sensational victory in the rain. Last week they beat Cardiff University 29-27 at St Helen’s to move further away from the relegation zone and give their confidence a considerable boost ahead of bid to notch a significant double over their capital city rivals.
And with Cardiff Met losing top spot in a 43-25 defeat at Loughborough on Wednesday, Gustafson believes the time might be right to repeat their heroics of last season, when they won 24-17.
“The win over Cardiff University was based on the fact we had beaten them in the previous six games and simply refused to lose. Now we want to use the good memories of winning at Cyncoed in February to our advantage this week,” said Gustafson, whose side had last five in a row before last week’s win.
“We are a much younger team this season and it has taken time for the players to get up to speed with this league. We’ve also had a lot of games against the top sides away from home.
“Just like Cardiff University, they might find coming to St Helen’s a much tougher prospect than they think. We are definitely improving, and the aim is to come up with an 80-minute performance like the one we had at Cyncoed last season.”
Cardiff Met are now five points behind Loughborough in second place, while Cardiff University have dropped to sixth after their defeat in Swansea. Joe Cowell’s Met side now have to pick themselves up to finish the first block of fixtures on a high with games against Swansea and Cardiff University.
“They were well up for the game and they scored quite a few points in the opening 25 minutes. We were a bit shell-shocked,” admitted Cowell.
“We brought ourselves back into the game in the second half and now we have two massive games to take us into the Christmas break and we will look forward to them.”
After the home game with Swansea, Met will head back to the Arms Park on 14 December for the second ‘Cardiff Clash’ against Cardiff University. Having lost the first one to a last minute try they will be hoping to provide director of rugby Danny Milton with the perfect Christmas present with a revenge win to stay in the hunt for a home quarter and semi-final game.
