Blues blitz Italians to go above Ospreys
CARDIFF Blues scored five tries as they thrashed Zebre in a bonus point victory to jump ahead of Welsh rivals the Ospreys in conference A of the Guinness PRO14.
Their tries came from discarded Wales scrum half Lloyd Williams, Kiwi centre Willis Halaholo, hooker Matthew Rees, fullback Matthew Morgan and winger Tom James
All the visitors could muster was a penalty from Italian international outside half Carlo Canna and a late try from replacement scrum half Guglielmo Palazzani.
The victory saw the Blues pull themselves off the bottom of Conference A to raise themselves to fifth in the table.
It has been a difficult season for the Blues with head coach Danny Wilson confirming he will be leaving for pastures new at the end of the season. One of the main reasons the former Wales U20 coach has opted to leave the Arms Park is due to a lack of funds which he feels he needs to add experience to his squad.
While the vast majority of this Blues squad is devoid of experience, one area of the field where they are not found wantin is the front row.
With Gethin Jenkins, Matthew Rees and Tafa’ao Filise the Blues were able to field a front row with a combined age of 114 and an international caps tally of 219. Some 134 of those caps have come from Gethin Jenkins with the Wales and Lions veteran making his first start of the season after recovering from a serious knee injury.
Many have written off Wales’ record cap holder but on this evidence the 36 year-old is a dark horse for a fifth Rugby World Cup. The former Toulon star was excellent, constantly getting over the gain-line and providing a work rate that other props could only dream of.
It took the Blues just five minutes to open the scoring when Williams raced down the touchline following a break from Halaholo which came as a result of a Nick Williams turnover.
And Halaholo grabbed the game’s second try when he glided past three defenders to sprint in from 30 metres out.
Zebre came close when scrum-half Marcello Violi offloaded the ball to centre
Mattia Bellini who pierced the Blues defence only to be brought down just short of the line. But the Blues dominated proceedings in the first half with Wilson’s side playing with a lot of width tiring Zebre’s heavy pack in the process.
With the Blues on top Shingler added three penalties so the home side turned around 18-3 to the good at half time.
The Blues carried their dominance into the second period with former Scarlets hooker Rees dotting down after an efficient driving lineout by the hosts.
Cardif got their bonus point on 62 minutes when Morgan crossed after American winger Blaine Scully drew three defenders on the touchline before offloading to the dangerous full back.
The Blues were in no mood to let Zebre off the hook with James, the region’s record points scorer getting the fifth try of the evening.
James took a quick lineout to Morgan on Zebre’s 22 before passing back inside for the winger to score.
With the game out of reach Palazzani scored from short range for a consolation try for the visitors.