Dai Young has expressed his immense frustration and disappointment after Cardiff Blues let a two score lead slip against London Irish.
With a European Challenge Cup quarter-final against Bath within touching distance and London Irish reduced to 14-men and even 13 for 10 minutes, Good Friday should have been a Great Friday at the Brentford Community Stadium.
But it was a case of heartbreak at the death as the Exiles snatched a dramatic victory in a thrilling, all action encounter.
Cardiff Blues went from elation as Jarrod Evans slotted a last-gasp drop-goal, to devastation as the hosts scored a fifth try in injury time and Young admits his side hurting.
The Cardiff Blues director of rugby said: “It is hugely frustrating and disappointing. We knew they were a good team and we knew they were very good ball in hand but we got ourselves in pretty strong positions on three occasions and let them get back in the game which is hugely frustrating and hugely disappointing.
“Even right at the end we got our noses in front, there’s two minutes to go and we didn’t handle that period very well. We gave away a penalty, which I don’t necessarily agree with, which gave them the ball back and the opportunity to score the try.
“When you get to periods in the game where you have a commanding lead and a bit of a cushion of points you have to close them out.
“Something we pride ourselves on is our defence, it’s something that has been strong but if you look at a lot of their tries, there were a lot of missed tackles by people who usually make those tackles. I’m very disappointed with that aspect.
“We knew you get one chance and today we can only look at ourselves. We did enough to win that game against a very good team and we should have come away with the result but we didn’t. We didn’t take that chance and we have to wait another 12 months for another.
“We are hurting a lot but we have to take that hurt and do something about it. That means learning from critical moments in the game where we have to do better.
“I’ve been here for four or five games now and it’s happened a couple of times. We have had five minute periods where we need to nail the game and it’s gone away from us. That is a big learning factor for us.
“There were a lot of good aspects, we took them on up front, driving line out and the scrum was good, we were patient behind and played the right areas on occasions and some good attacking stuff on occasions but we need to know how to win a game and that has alluded us.
“The boys are really disappointed but disappointed in ourselves because we did a lot of good work there and should have come away with the result.”
Cardiff Blues are now out of action until the first round of the new Guinness Pro14 Rainbow Cup, which kicks off with a clash on the road against the Ospreys.