Following his team’s 20-6 victory at BT Murrayfield, Blues head coach Danny Wilson said he was looking forward to facing Pau at Cardiff Arms Park in the Challenge Cup’s last four later this month.
Blues downed Edinburgh thanks to tries from Ellis Jenkins and Blaine Scully and will have home advantage over Pau in their bid to reach the final.
“It will be great to be back at the Arms Park because Ulster last week could have been our last game there for the season,” Wilson said.
“It’s great to go back there now to play in a semi-final. It will be a great day out for everybody and hopefully we can pack out the Arms Park.
“We’re at home, we’re on a roll and hopefully, if we can get out of South Africa without too many injuries, we can have a good crack at that game against Pau.”
The Blues were forced to do some gritty defence on their own try-line in the final 15 minutes in Edinburgh which was made even harder by having Ellis Jenkins in the sin bin.
But ultimately they did enough to secure the win as Wales flanker Josh Navidi produced an outstanding man-of-the-match display.
“The tacklers we’ve got in our side put that pressure over the ball in the first half and then just towards the end there, we kept them out,” Navidi said.
“Keeping that pressure over the ball and slowing their ball down meant they didn’t have an opportunity to play.
“The boys today were outstanding and everyone who came on made an impact. It was a massive performance from one to 23.”
Wilson praised his side’s defensive efforts and added: “Respect to Edinburgh because down the middle of the park their defence is extremely difficult to break down and we had to try to do something slightly different.
“I’ve also got to give big credit to the players and also to Shaun Edwards and Richard Hodges because I thought our defence was outstanding.
“We wanted to bring that big contact area presence and on the whole we got huge change out of it, as we did with the line-speed and big collisions. It caused Edinburgh problems.
“We all know how well Edinburgh have been playing, winning six on the bounce coming into this game. They were at home so there were always going to be patches in the game where we would be under immense pressure.”
Wilson is hoping to keep his team’s fine recent form going as they head to South Africa for the next round of PRO14 fixtures.
In the Champions Cup, fellow Welsh side, the Scarlets booked their place in the European Rugby Champions Cup semi-final with an emphatic win over La Rochelle.
“It was great to see the Scarlets win at home on Friday night,” added Wilson. “It was a fantastic performance and result for them and Welsh rugby. For us to come away from home and do the same is great.
“We’re both in the semi-finals of European competitions and it’s fantastic for Welsh rugby. Let’s hope both of us can kick on to the final and have a good day out in Bilbao, but we’ve both got pretty tough games ahead of us.”
