Dai Young was proud to see his side paying fitting tribute to Peter Thomas’ ‘unrivalled’ contribution to Cardiff Rugby as they booked their place in the Challenge Cup quarter final with a stunning win over Sale Sharks.
It was an emotionally-charged evening at the Arms Park, which kicked off with players, staff, board members and former players joining Thomas’ family on the pitch to pay their respects after the Life President sadly passed away earlier in the week.
With an electric atmosphere at the iconic ground, a scintillating first half performance put the hosts on the way to victory, courtesy of a Josh Adams brace and a Corey Domachowski score.
Sale - who currently sit in second place in the Gallagher Premiership - produced a spirited second half fightback, briefly regaining the lead, but Jarrod Evans’ late penalty sealed the win for the Blue and Blacks on a memorable evening.
“Obviously it’s been an emotional week and an awful week as you can imagine,” explained Cardiff’s Director of Rugby.
“It was a fitting tribute at the start and it was a tribute that demonstrated how much Peter meant to us all. Everyone wanted to be a part of it and show that he meant a lot to us.
“His contribution, his generosity and his drive will never be matched so he is unrivalled.
“He leaves a massive void which I personally believe won’t be filled. He was definitely the heartbeat of the club and drove the standards.
“Whenever this club was in trouble, Peter always stood up. We’re all hugely indebted to him for what he’s done for the club.
“But not only that, but for the way he was with every individual. He knew everyone throughout the club and take the time to know everyone.
“It’s cut us all deep and that performance was missing just one thing, and that was Peter seeing it. It was a fantastic tribute to Peter and hopefully the family could see how much he meant to us all.”
The Cardiff pack set the platform for the backs to flourish, winning a series of key scrum penalties.
Young praised his side’s strength of character to come away with the win, making it a night to remember at the capital.
“In the first half, the whole team were excellent and that was lead from the pack,” explained the former Wales international.
“We had to make a change early doors, which you never want to do. We went six-two on the bench because we knew it would be a physical confrontation on the bench.
“We were excellent in the first half and were very good in the second. We knew coming into half time that they would get their purple patch and have some momentum in the game as nobody gets control for 80 minutes.
“It was always down to whether we could weather that and come back again. The players, to a man, were fantastic.
“I’ve always been confident that on our day we can beat anybody. But consistency has always been the thing that’s alluded us.
“To win games like this, you’ve got to be at least eight out of ten, and I thought everybody has to be at that level.
“If that’s a six out of ten performance, then we don’t win. But everyone across the board were eight out of ten.
“It’s probably unrealistic to be eight out of ten every week. But when we’ve had our internationals playing over the last couple of seasons, we’ve won a fair amount of games. When we haven’t, we haven’t won too many. We’re obviously looking at squad depth and strengths within that.
“But tonight is a night for the boys to enjoy. They were excellent and played against a team that we knew weren’t going to go away in a hurry and it definitely took an eight out of ten performance to get over the line.”