COACH GETS A LIFT FROM BLUES FLAIR
JOHN Mulvihill was delighted Cardiff Blues showed their attacking intent as they went top of Conference A with a resounding bonus-point victory over Connacht.
The Blues built on their openingday win at Zebre with a composed display in which they crossed for four tries at Rodney Parade.
Head coach Mulvihill told the Blues website: “We lifted the intensity again from last week. Today we were good coming out of our end but also had that sharpness in attack and that’s what we wanted to bring.
“We knew that Connacht are a good team who are well coached, and we knew they were going to come at us hard around the rucks.
“We hadn’t touched the ball for 15 minutes when they scored in the second half, and we had a yellow card.
“But all we needed to do after that was get the ball in the right areas of the park, and we knew that we could put them under pressure.
“In every game that you play, the opposition will own the game for some period of time. It’s about limiting that time, and I think we’ve done that well tonight.
“We haven’t spoken about winning games, it’s about getting ourselves right each week.
“Now we can dust ourselves off, have a light week next week and really bounce into what is a long preparation ahead of Munster away on a Monday night.”
Matthew Morgan scythed through in the opening exchanges before Lloyd Williams was dragged down as he charged towards the line. But Connacht eventually gave away a penalty in their own 22, and Jarrod Evans clipped over the three-pointer.
The first try of the match came in the 36th minute. Morgan again found some space and fed Josh Adams. The Wales international was dragged down by Alex Wooton, but he got the offload away to Hallam Amos, who cantered over.
Evans added the conversion as his side took a 10-0 lead in at the break.
Connacht came out fired up early in the second half and controlled proceedings.
It looked like things were going to get uncomfortable when Dillon Lewis was sin-binned for stopping a maul illegally following heavy pressure.
Soon after Conor Oliver went under the sticks and Carty’s conversion cut the deficit to just three points.
But the Blues responded well and Ray Lee-Lo danced his way through tackles to streak up the far touchline before giving Amos another clear run in from 30 metres for his second try.
Adams then bumped off his man to send Shane Lewis-Hughes galloping towards the line. He was dragged down just short, but the ball was flung wide and was slapped away by winger Peter Sullivan.
Referee Gianluca Gnecci had no choice but to award a penalty try and show Sullivan a yellow card.
More Connacht indiscipline put the hosts within striking distance and Kristian Dacey burrowed his way over. Jason Tovey converted.