Dai Young has challenged his Cardiff team to use Saturday’s stunning URC win over Leinster as a yardstick for performances over the rest of the campaign.
Jarrod Evans’ last gasp penalty secured the Blue and Blacks’ first victory over the Dubliners since 2011, making it a memorable occasion as crowds returned to Cardiff Arms Park for the first time this year.
And while Young was delighted to seal the victory over the defending champions, he hopes the performance and result will inject confidence and momentum into the rest of Cardiff’s campaign.
“Obviously it’s much nicer to win the game but it was a pretty good performance for most of the night,” said the director of rugby.
“We stood toe-to-toe with the champions, having good phases and poor phases.
“But as we’ve said, if you can stick in the arm wrestle with a couple of minutes to go, games can go either way.
“It was a fantastic kick from Jarrod, showing a lot of bottle to get it over. I think he had more than 6,000 people blowing it over with him as well.
“It was fantastic and hopefully it can give the squad a lot of confidence. We haven’t beaten them for 11 years so hopefully this can show the squad that we can move forward.
“But it has put pressure on us to maintain standards, as we’ve spoken about in the changing room.
“Great, let’s enjoy it, it’s a fantastic win but we’ve set ourselves the standard. The important thing for us is to maintain the standards and show the consistency in performances, home or away.
“If we play to our potential, then it will take a good team to beat us. We’ve shown over the last two games some consistency in our performances.
“They go to everyone in the league and beat them quite comfortably. So to say we’d have to be at our best is probably an understatement.
“But we were good for it. We got our noses in front but they capitalised on our yellow card.
“They’re an experienced side and we could’ve quite easily folded. But we showed real guts and determination but also stuck to the structure and processes. We then found a way to beat them in the last minute.
“Up front we stood up set piece-wise and the scrum was good tonight. We caught them on the hop a few times on the driving line-outs, leading to good drives and we defended their drives really well.
“It was all about the collisions outside the set piece, and apart from the yellow card period, we matched their collisions. Doing that allows us to slow their ball down and that’s paramount to get the result.”
The win saw Wales under-20 hooker Efan Daniel coming off the bench to make his debut, with a total of 15 from the matchday squad developed through the club’s pathway.
After experiencing narrow, late defeats to the likes of Harlequins and London Irish in recent months, Young was pleased to see his side learning from their lessons, giving the electric Arms Park crowd a reason to celebrate.
The former Wales and Lions prop added: “I was really pleased with our physicality on both sides of the ball, but it was also nice to see a lot of youngsters out there as well, experiencing this level of rugby for the first time.
“The big thing, as a team, is that it’s all about learning. You learn as much in defeats as you do in wins.
“We’ve lost a couple of games in the last 10 minutes, but today we didn’t panic. We stuck to our processes and didn’t go away from what we spoke about.
“In games gone by, we would’ve tried to over-play in certain areas and maybe give away another penalty in our own half.
“Nobody wants to lose, but the important thing is that you learn from them, and tonight you could see we had learned from those narrow defeats.
“The crowd were outstanding. It’s not great playing without a crowd but we really saw the value of a crowd tonight.
“There were patches where things weren’t going right. You’ll never have momentum, field position and be on top for 80 minutes. There will always be periods in that game where things go against you.
“But having the crowd, like we did tonight, getting right behind the team was a huge pick up for the players.
“You can ask them how much they enjoy playing in front of the crowd here.
“They played a part tonight, without a shadow of a doubt. I hope they enjoyed that victory, because we’re all in it together.
“They haven’t seen us beating them for a long while so it was a great day for everyone involved.”