Half centurion Owen Lane hopes there’s plenty more caps to come for his home region, after hitting his latest milestone in last night’s Guinness PRO14 win over Benetton Rugby.
The wing marked his 50th appearance with a stunning solo try - his 24th in Cardiff Blues colours - to fire John Mulvihill’s side to victory.
Lane shared his special night with two fellow academy products, as Garyn Smith reached a century of appearances while Teddy Williams made his senior debut.
Lane was delighted to mark the special occasion with a try but, despite international ambitions, the wing insists his current focus is on building form in Cardiff Blues colours.
“It was a shame Garyn had to get his 100th and out-shadow me,” joked Lane.
“It means a lot to get my 50th appearance for the region. I’m gutted there was no crowd and my parents couldn’t be here.
“But I’m over the moon to reach that with Cardiff Blues and hopefully there’s many more to come.
“I’m just concentrating on keeping myself fit and trying to string a run of performances together for Cardiff Blues.
“I ultimately want to be and you only do that by performing week-in, week-out so hopefully I can do that.
“We’d been looking for that play around three or four times, and had called it on Hallam’s side but actually lost the line-out.
“When it came to my side, I was lucky that we won the ball and Garyn and Jarrod did their jobs and held the right people.
“A couple of the boys said it was lucky I scored as I should’ve given it but I haven’t looked at it back yet.
“But I was really happy to cross the whitewash and just really happy about the result in the end.”
It was a gritty, hard-fought victory from the hosts at Rodney Parade, who crossed for three tries despite atrocious stormy conditions in Newport.
However, the Welsh international was pleased to see his side bounce back from last week’s defeat against Edinburgh to secure the win with a mature performance.
“We came into the game looking to play a bit more and felt that we went into our shells in Edinburgh and weren’t as confident with ball in hand,” added the academy product.
“We were a bit gutted on the field as we realised it wasn’t a game where we were going to be able to run everything and get our hands on the ball.
“But I thought the half backs managed the game really well and the centres stepped up and played their part.
“We were really clinical and it was nice to see us control the game like we did. We didn’t panic and we got the result in the end.”