John Mulvihill was delighted to see his side re-discover their attacking identity and they go back on tracks with a convincing victory over Toyota Cheetahs.
Wales’ Capital Region bounced back from a four-game losing streak in style, as Aled Summerhill and Josh Turnbull crossed the whitewash with Jarrod Evans picking up the man-of-the-match award.
The head coach hopes the victory will give his side a momentum swing as they prepare for back-to-back European fixtures.
“I’m happy that we played the way we’ve trained. We competed for everything tonight and that’s something we haven’t done in the last few games,” said Mulvihill.
“We played the way we needed to play when we’re at home. When you play an exciting style of rugby, people will turn up to watch.
“It should remind us of how good a team we can be if we turn up to play and use the ball.
“I though our kicking was excellent. Every kick either went off the park or was a contest for the ball.
“We gave Jarrod a bit of freedom to play out of the back and he set up some of the other players.
“When Willis came on we kept moving to that same spot of the field. If we can play better at unstructured rugby, that will be the way forward for us.
“Our outside backs are amongst the leaders for line breaks so we need to get the ball to those key players.
“I thought Rey was really good tonight and our back three were very good.”
Lloyd Williams made his 200th appearance for the region, becoming only the second player to hit the milestone in Cardiff Blues colours.
Mulvihill says it’s been a big week of recognising the achievement, and he was delighted to sign off the occasion with a win.
The Australian added: “We were all really happy for Lloyd. It’s been a big week for us after the let down of last week.
“It was negative after the game, so we went into the week with positivity and we spoke about getting the week right for Lloyd.
“We knew that if we played well for our mate, then we’d be happy after the game, and that’s come to fruition.
“Every day we started training, we spoke about him and his importance to the group.
“It was a nice moment for his family to come in and present the jersey to him. “
“In professional sport, to play 200 games is massive, but it’s really rare to play 200 for the one club, with your mates, in the club you grew up.
“We took that emotion into the game and certainly played for him tonight.”