Wilson proud of wounded Blues

Cardiff Blues head coach Danny Wilson admitted that injuries did not help their cause as they went down 46-21 to Stade Français on Friday.

The result ended the Blues' hopes of qualifying for next season's Champions Cup as the Parisians now face Northampton in the play-off final.

Wilson's side lost Tom James to injury before kick-off then Rhun Williams, Rey Lee-Lo, Steve Shingler, Willis Halaholo, Matthew Rees and Kirby Myhill also came off in a major setback to their hopes, with the head coach disappointed yet proud of his team's efforts during 2016/17.

"It's been a long-hard season and that was certainly a brutal way to end it in terms of injuries – come the end we had a back-row in the centre, a scrum-half on the wing and had run out of backs," he told the Cardiff Blues website.

"I've never seen anything like that as a coach. We lost one in the warm-up, one in the first minute, then Rey nine minutes later. 

"So 10 minutes into the game and we've lost three players from our selected team. Then it just carries on, Shingler comes on and gets injured straight away in the centre, we were pretty decimated by the end.

"But that's the game – it can be a brutal game and it certainly was today. We scored some good tries, played some good rugby but ultimately we didn't have enough firepower to deal with what Stade had, their bench added dramatically, while we were trying to patch up severe injuries.

"Credit to the players this season, they've worked extremely hard and again they showed some of the attacking rugby we can play and at times defended well but ultimately we came up short."