The Blues picked themselves up from their defeat against the Dragons a week earlier to end their pre-season campaign on a high with tries coming from Tom James, Steve Shingler, Aled Summerhill and Blaine Scully. They open their Guinness PRO2 campaign at home against Edinburgh on 3 September.
Former England wing Tom Varndell crossed twice for the visitors, who also had a try from Ben Mosses to go with Henson’s three conversions and penalty.
It was a victory in which Blues head coach Danny Wilson got his first look at new recruits Nick Williams and Matthew Morgan. For Morgan it was a debut against the team he helped reach the Aviva Premiership last season
“Both players showed what they are capable of and I’m sure there’s plenty to come from both of them. Matthew showed great footwork and acceleration, while Nick is a hugely competitive man with a huge defensively ability to turn the ball over,” said Wilson.
“I’m pleased with a number of aspects of our performance, but I still think there’s a fair bit to work on. For a pre-season fixture it had a balance of what we wanted – plenty of good stuff, good performances individually and collectively, some great tries.
“But we also conceded some soft tries and that’s an area we need to look at. We’re moving in the right direction, it has been well documented that we have made a lot of the changes from last season’s squad and a number of people have come in.
“We have a week to do some hard preparation and the boys will have the last weekend off with their families before they move into an extremely long run of fixtures. It’s a balancing act of keeping boys fresh and fit and giving them enough rugby that they are not rusty.
“Last week was about looking at a few younger guys, this week we played some more experienced guys and we’ve still got to bring back Sam Warburton, Gethin Jenkins, Lloyd Williams, Josh Turnbull and Gareth Anscombe – another five internationals.”
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