Cardiff have made five changes for their crucial Vodacom URC clash against the Stormers at Cape Town Stadium on Friday night.

The ninth-placed Welsh club go into the final round of the league stage requiring a win to reach the playoffs.

Josh McNally captains the team again, after Liam Belcher was ruled out through injury.

There are three changes to the pack that lost 45-21 to the Bulls at Loftus last weekend. Danny Southworth starts at loosehead prop, Teddy Williams returns to partner McNally in the second row, while Taulupe Faletau packs down at eight with Alun Lawrence shifting to blindside flank.

Aled Davies and Callum Sheedy provide experience as the halfback pairing with the rest of the backs unchanged.

Cardiff coach Matt Sherratt has again opted for a 6-2 split on the bench, with Johan Mulder and Rory Jennings providing the backline cover.

“The Stormers are a good team and are in good form as well,” said Sherratt. “Like all the South African teams, they’ve got that balance between power and pace and their backs are very, very dangerous.

“They’re a very confidence-based team, so a lot of this week will be us trying to make the game look like what we want it rather than what they want.

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“It would be brilliant if we reached the playoffs,” he added. “We have never been in the URC playoffs before and for the club with our history and the potential, we should be getting into the top eight.

“It’s going to be a tough ask because results went against us at the weekend, but we spoke to the players around not trying to creep in, let’s win a game and get in there rather than hope that other teams didn’t get what they needed.”

CARDIFF – 15 Cam Winnett, 14 Josh Adams, 13 Harri Millard, 12 Ben Thomas, 11 Gabe Hamer-Webb, 10 Callum Sheedy, 9 Aled Davies, 8 Taulupe Faletau, 7 Alex Mann, 6 Alun Lawrence, 5 Teddy Williams, 4 Josh McNally (c), 3 Keiron Assiratti, 2 Evan Lloyd, 1 Danny Southworth.
Bench: 16 Dafydd Hughes, 17 Corey Domachowski, 18 Rhys Litterick, 19 Rory Thornton, 20 James Botham, 21 Dan Thomas, 22 Johan Mulder, 23 Rory Jennings.

Photo: Huw Fairclough/Getty Images