Matt Sherratt was delighted as Cardiff made it two from two in the BKT United Rugby Championship thanks to an impressive bonus-point win over the Scarlets.
It was a far from perfect start in west Wales as the home side tore into a 15-0 lead after just 11 minutes. Indeed it took just 14 seconds for Macs Page to cross – the third fastest try in competition history – but Cardiff regathered their composure and dominated large periods.
Liam Belcher, ever industrious, and Mason Grady claimed first-half tries and both Harri Millard and Ben Thomas touched down in the second-half to complete the comeback and claim a bonus-point win.
Sherratt was pleased with the fight and resilience displayed by the Blue & Blacks, as well as the growth of game from last week’s equally impressive bonus-point win over Zebre.
He said: “I nearly crawled under the desk after the first kick-off. Not the start we’d hoped for, but listen there’s always an element of risk with something like that.
“I think after Zebre last week we probably played within ourselves a little bit and listen I know everybody wants the ultimate game but I think that was a sign of we wanted to change a game, take risks and sometimes they come off, sometimes they don’t.
“But going behind that early and then they got a penalty, I think we went 15-0 down. It gives you one way to go. I thought in that first 15 minutes, the way we came back into the game, held them out close line was a real sign of a lot of the stuff we showed last year.
“We showed a great amount of resilience there. We’ve got credit that to the pack as well. I think that sustained pressure around the 50th, 55th minute when we had a lot of scrum pens, got two yellow cards obviously, one from scrum dominance was nice.
“It was a big moment getting some reward for that domination. A lot of credit has got to go to the forwards, Scott Andrews, Corneil, I thought they really stood up today.
“I actually heard Ken Owens talk in the week and he’s right, a derby comes down to your physicality around the contact area and your front five and I thought our front five stepped up today.”
Cardiff return to the Arms Park for back-to-back home matches, facing reigning champions Glasgow Warriors first, before a rematch with the Scarlets.
Following a season of so many near misses last year, Sherratt admits his side will enjoy their perfect start. But, on Monday, the hard work starts again.
He said: “As I said before the game, it’s about this season, we’ve got them again in two weeks time. We won’t take anything for granted, but as I just said to the players downstairs, this is what you do the job for, to come away from home, get wins and to make sure we enjoy that until Monday morning and then we’ll turn our focus to Glasgow.
“It’s a good start, but that’s exactly what it is. I didn’t get carried away last year when it was the other way and I certainly won’t this year, but I’m just pleased that the players have got some reward.
“To round the game up, the first 15 minutes with how they started, we dug in and I thought we played some good stuff as well when we had ball in hand and got ourselves back into the game.
“Then I was particularly pleased with the end of game. I thought we controlled our kicking game pretty well. When somebody was needed to put a big shot in or get a turnover we got that and we killed some of their momentum in that last 15 minutes. So, yeah, good start overall.
“The season always kind of mirrors a game, there’ll be ups and downs, there’ll be some momentum.
“It’s a new group and I’m really pleased with winning today, but actually I think people took it for granted a little bit last week. I heard a little bit of negativity around our win last week but Zebre are a good team. Look what happened today, they beat Munster, they beat Glasgow in pre-season 31-0, so I was really pleased with the win against Zebre.
“Today we showed flashes of what Cardiff can do, I think both sides of the ball, showed some fight, attack from deep, we had some really good ball movement. So again, it’s just building on that but as I said, I’m probably still as pleased with the Zebre win. It was a banana skin that game.”