Ulster v Cardiff team news as Josh Navidi returns amid host of Wales v France auditions

Josh Navidi returns from injury to start for Cardiff in their URC clash with Ulster on Friday night.

The Wales flanker is involved for the first time since October, when the British and Irish Lions call-up suffered a shoulder injury against the Bulls in Cardiff.

With a Six Nations call-up set to follow next week, Navidi's start at the Kingspan Stadium could pave the way for involvement against France on Friday night.

Alongside him in the Cardiff back-row are two other Welsh internationals, with Ellis Jenkins packing down on the blindside as he seeks to force his way back into Wayne Pivac's thinking for France and James Botham lining up at No. 8.

Willis Halaholo also finally gets a chance to get some minutes under his belt as he bids to prove his fitness ahead of Wales' final two Six Nations fixtures.

Elsewhere, club captain Josh Turnbull draws level with Aan Keatley in the league's all-time appearance list, while Jarrod Evans is in line to make his 99th appearance for the club - lining up alongside Lloyd Williams in the half-back positions.

Speaking ahead of the club's first competitive outing in five weeks, Cardiff director of rugby Dai Young said: “When you have players of equal quality, you can rotate a little bit, while not losing the performance you’re looking for.

“We want to make sure that we’re looking after the players so that when we go to South Africa we’ve got enough bodies.

“The league table isn’t pretty reading when you look at it, because we’re in twelfth place.

“But when you start scraping through the ceiling, you see that we’ve played the least amount of games.

“But the message to the players is that it’s in our hands. We’ve got the ability to go out to play and perform and if we pick up points along