Cardiff No.8 Xavier Rush puts his foot down at Franklin's Gardens © Getty Images

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Players/Officials: Stephen Myler | Dai Young

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Teams: Cardiff Blues | England | Northampton Saints | Wales

Cardiff Blues boss Dai Young has demanded that his players face up to the challenges posed by Northampton's scrum and lineout when the sides go head-to-head at the Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday.

The former Wales and British & Irish Lions tight-head was forced to watch his men lose the physical battle at the scrum in their 23-15 Franklin's Gardens loss last weekend while they were also shown up at the lineout, where Courtney Lawes and Christian Day caused plenty of problems.

The Blues must win the return match to have any hope of overhauling the Saints at the top of Pool 1 but their task is complicated further by the looming presence of in-form French side Castres, who moved four points clear of Cardiff with victory over Edinburgh in the last round.

"Losing up there was a big dent to our ambitions, but it isn't terminal," Young said. "We have got to play better to give ourselves a chance. We knew the scrum would be tough, but their line-out caused us even more problems. There were moments when we got field position, and looked as though we could be dangerous, but then lost our line-out ball.

"We have got to sort it out ourselves and we must work on our line-out this week. There were individual errors and wrong calls and Courtney Lawes won three of our throws and didn't even have to move. It meant we had to play from deep all the time, and we didn't have any momentum, but we still pushed them at times.

"They are probably the strongest scrum in Europe, right up there with the big French packs, and sometimes we struggled in that area - we know it's again going to be a weapon for them."

Saints fly-half Stephen Myler, who is approaching top form after a worrying slump with the boot, is expecting another tough encounter and has called on his team-mates to limit the opportunities afforded to Blues No.10 Dan Parks this weekend.

"We gave away a few penalties in the first-half and Dan was kicking well," he said. "We will need to address that because we don't want to give them a toe hold in the game this weekend.

"Dan has been around the block and knows how to make the most of his chances. He is a quality kicker and he is a threat to us. This weekend is massive for us. We are happy with the first win over the Blues, but we are under no illusions as to how difficult a task we face next time. We need to work hard in training this week in order to show what we are made of on Sunday. We have won three out of three, but we have to go and show we are worthy of another win."