Skipper Gethin Jenkins praised the impact of a fired-up Arms Park crowd in the closing stages as Cardiff Blues held off a resurgent Ulster Rugby to claim a tense and dramatic 28-23 victory in the RaboDirect PRO12.
A thrilling encounter saw Blues blast into a 22-5 lead before the Ulstermen staged a second half revival to close the gap to two points.
A nail-biting finale saw Gareth Davies hold his nerve to land a crucial penalty before a dogged and resilient home defence held out in the closing seconds as Ulster threw everything at the hosts.
The nerve-shredding final moments were played out to a defeaning and passionate backdrop of noise as the Arms Park support got right behind the Blues to the delight of Jenkins and his team-mates.
“It’s nice to give that one to the fans. They spurred us on in the last few minutes and kept the performance going for the result. It’s nice to finish for the season at the Arms Park on a win,” he said.
“We showed a good reaction in the first half to comeback from last week against Ospreys.
“The lack of confidence maybe showed in the second half as we went into our shells a little bit and they came back at us hard.
“Ulster are a quality team, they are European quarter-finalists, so it was great defence at the end to see it out.
“The performance last week was not right and there was a lot of honesty from the coaches and players have responded to it.”