Eight players involved in Ireland’s Autumn series including full-back Rob Kearney and centre Brian O’Driscoll return for the trip to Wales after sitting out Sunday’s 30-14 defeat to Newport-Gwent Dragons.

Meanwhile Irish rivals Munster played a near full-strength side for their clash with Ospreys, but Cheika believes each approach has its own benefit.

He said: “There's no right or wrong way to go about these things and last week Munster chose to play most of their guys, but we made a decision to rest the team and start preparing for this week’s game.

“I can understand why maybe I got a bit of criticism last week because it was not the scenario that I would have liked to have had.

“As long as you’ve got a plan and you feel confident, and the players feel confident, then that’s the way you've got to proceed.”