Bradley Davies is back for Cardiff Blues' Heineken Cup showdown against defending champions Leinster Rugby at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday - and that is a huge boost for the club left flying the flag for Wales in the high-profile quarter-finals.
Wales lock Davies was banned for seven weeks after being cited following the RBS 6 Nations 23-21 victory over Ireland in February and Blues' forwards coach Justin Burnell singled out his return for the Dublin contest as the significant plus.
"Bradley is back from suspension and that is a big thing for us," said Burnell. "He has been a fantastic player for Wales and Cardiff Blues and just to have him back has been like a breath of fresh air through the squad, it is massive.
"He is a good bloke, a good leader and he has really grabbed hold of the set piece over the last few weeks and had a good look at that from a technical point of view so we are really excited about having him back."
Two Blues players - Davies and Leigh Halfpenny - are making quick-fire returns to the scene of that Six Nations triumph while Leinster had nine players on national duty that day in Rob Kearney, Fergus McFadden, Gordon D'Arcy, Jonny Sexton, Eoin Reddan, Cian Healy, Mike Ross, Sean O'Brien and Jamie Heaslip.
"Leinster play with lot of continuity, they have some fantastic pace out wide and a great pack of forwards - they are a bit of an all round package and we expect a tough encounter," said Burnell. "However, hopefully we can manage to slow their ball down and upset them in certain aspects of their game.
"And when you look at our performances in the matches at Racing Metro this season and in the 2010 Amlin Challenge Cup final against Toulon there is no reason why we can't go to Dublin and perform and win the game.
"We are not going there to make up the numbers or to make the match a good spectacle - we are going there to try our hardest to win the game. It will be a massive occasion at the Aviva in front of a huge crowd against the big boys in Europe - if not the team in Europe - so it couldn't be much bigger than this.
"From our point of view seven of our squad were in Wales' Grand Slam winning team, Casey Laulala is in fine form at the moment and James Down, who I have always thought would be a very good player, is coming back from injury.
"Our captain Paul Tito is a fantastic leader and Xavier Rush is playing well at the moment so we do have some very good players of our own."
And Rush could be on a bone-jarring, ball-carrying collision course with a fellow All Black, 2011 World Cup winning lock Brad Thorn, the 37-year-old who joined Leinster last month.
"It's quite nice to play against someone who is older than me these days so it will be good to play against Brad - it has been a while since I played both with him and against him," said Rush.
"He is a big lump and a real professional who obviously has also got a lot of history with Rugby League so I am sure it will be big challenge over in Dublin but one we are really looking forward to.
"It is great to have out Welsh boys back, they had recent success at the Aviva Stadium so it is good to feed off that success, and while Leinster are a very good outfit I am sure we have the players to at least give us parity over there."
