Dai Young says lessons learnt from narrow defeats have been crucial to Cardiff Blues’ recent late victories over Dragons and Scarlets.
The capital city club made it back-to-back Rainbow Cup victories in dramatic fashion at Parc y Scarlets earlier today.
Despite Young’s men securing a bonus point in the early stages of the second half, having racked up a commanding lead, the hosts mounted a comeback to take the lead with five minutes remaining in Llanelli.
However, a last gasp penalty from Guinness Player of the Match, Jarrod Evans, saw Cardiff coming away with maximum points at Parc y Scarlets.
After seeing his side falling to late defeats against Munster and Connacht in recent weeks, Young was pleased to see his side showing character and maturity to secure the victory, just a week after beating Dragons in similar fashion.
“Obviously the most pleasing thing was coming down here and getting the victory. It’s always a difficult place to come and get the win,” says the former international prop.
“The last five minutes in the last two games have been nip and tuck, and games we could’ve lost, but we’ve found a way to win and run the clock down.
“In the early parts of the season, we would’ve lost those games. You look at the recent games against Connacht and Munster, where we were in a similar position but the games got away from us.
“It’s nice to see that we’ve actually learnt from those defeats because that’s what you always say you should do.
“In the last couple of games we’ve shown that we can handle those last five minutes better than we did previously.
“The disappointing factor for us again was the second half. We were really good again in the first half, and well worth our lead, but in the second half we ran out of steam.
“We lost momentum, but while there were a few penalties there weren’t many that were needless ones. They came down to the pressure the Scarlets were putting on us.
“There were a couple of wayward kicks and it looks like our energy by the second half had become pretty low. On the back of a six-day turnaround, that is to be expected a little bit, but we’ve also got work to do in the summer to pick our levels up.
“We want to play the game at a high tempo, with high pressure in defence, and to do that we need to step up our conditioning a level.
“It’s not something we’ll be able to work on over the next fortnight because players will just become tired, so we’ll look towards pre-season to put that together.
“We’ll give the boys a bit of a rest after a six day turnaround following a tough game against Dragons and another tough game down here.
“We need to be sensible with our workload during the week.”
Only two games remain for Young’s side as they look to make a bid for Rainbow Cup glory. Next up is a trip to Munster, and while the former British and Irish Lion expects a tough test in Limerick, he believes it’s a perfect place for Cardiff to see where they are as a side.
The director of rugby added: “We have an opportunity out in Munster. We haven’t won there in a long time so it will be a great opportunity to see where we are as a team.
“We know Munster are really physical with a good set piece, and it will be a challenge for us in that area.
“They keep it simple and direct and you know they’ll come around that corner.
“You need to win the battle of the gain line and physicality will be the first thing that we need to handle.
“It’s also about taking opportunities when they come, because the reality is you may not get many opportunities out there.
“I’m really looking forward to that challenge and it will be a real measure of where we are as a team. If we can go out there and get the result with a good performance, there’s no reason we can’t kick on further.”