Head Coach Danny Wilson praised his battling Cardiff Blues as they stunned league leaders Connacht Rugby to claim a crucial 20-16 win in the Guinness PRO12 at BT Sport Cardiff Arms Park.

Tries from man-of-the-match Manoa Vosawai and winger Tom James fired the home side into the lead.

And a superb late defensive show kept the Irish side at bay to see Cardiff Blues record a second league win of the season on home soil.

“I was pleased to see such a big effort from the players and to defeat the league leaders at home,” he said.

“We talked about improving our home record; this is only our third home league game and people do forget that.

“We need to build a home record and if we want to give ourselves a chance in this league over years to come we need to win at home. We did that tonight and hopefully that will give us a springboard to build from.

“We stopped the best attack in the league and we defended for long periods really well,” he added.

“We had good line speed and when they went out the back to try and get around us we cut that off. We got caught once or twice, but we scrambled well too.

“We’ve only conceded 16 points against the best attack in the league at the moment so we have got to be pleased by that.

“Credit goes to our defence coaches, Graham Steadman and Richard Hodges, because that was another massive step in the right direction.

“I felt we had a good platform tonight and worked extremely hard. When we did have patches of attack we showed what we can do and the major work on was our contact area. We got turned over a bit too easy.

“But the important factor was getting the right performance to get a positive result – we got that.”