Hard graft the key for triumphant Blues

The Blues went into the match having registered 17 tries in their last four games, including seven in the previous round of the competition at Newcastle Falcons last month.

But a horrific downpour in the lead up to kick off soaked the playing surface at Adams Park and destroyed spectator hopes of seeing the Blues at their scintillating attacking best.

Instead, conditions required a far tighter approach, one based on forward power and defensive solidity rather than the exciting, ball-playing game plan usually associated with Young's outfit, but the Blues delivered nonetheless.

"It was never going to be really pretty because of the conditions," said Young after he watched his side record an 18-15 triumph in High Wycombe.

"We showed great maturity. We didn't flap about decisions or one or two things going against us. We just carried on with the game plan.

"In fairness, we'd rather have had a dry track because we've got players out there who like to move the ball about and that's something we've done really well over the last four or six weeks.

"But to win any competition, or to get to the later stages, you've got to have an A and B game.

"Today we know it wasn't going to be the time to get 15 or 20 offloads or really get the ball wide and we had to do the hard graft. For most of the game, the forwards did that."

At the end of 2009, the Blues' season looked to be petering to an end. Struggling in the Magners League and facing a battle to secure Heineken Cup qualification for next season, the Welsh capital outfit looked set for an early continental exit after pool defeats to Sale Sharks and Toulouse.

But a Heineken Cup home win over the Sharks was followed by a bonus-point triumph at Harlequins in Round 6 that secured a last-gasp place in the knockout stages of the Amlin Challenge Cup.

And over the last few weeks, the Blues have been in majestic form winning six successive games, sitting on the brink of the Magners League Play-Offs, and now becoming the first Welsh region to reach a European Final.

"We were disappointed not to go through to the quarter-finals of the major competition but we certainly want to go all the way in this competition," added Young.

"I think we've lost two games (excluding a penalty shoot out defeat to Leicester) in two seasons so, by nay stretch of the imagination, that's a pretty good record.

""We want to win something every year. Things are ticking over nicely going into the real business end of the season.

"There's no secret to the turnaround - we've got our best players playing. If you look at the start of the season where we lost games, we didn't have the likes of Martyn Williams, Gethin Jenkins, Jamie Roberts and Casey Lualua. There's five or six players who didn't play regularly at the start of the year.

"It's the same with anything: one or two wins will breed a bit of confidence and a bit of belief.

"In fairness to the players, they've turned it around. I'm not pretending from a coaching point of view that we've done anything different, because we haven't. We've just kept the faith and belief in the players.

"We know that if we can get somewhere near our best team on the field, we're more than a match for anybody. We're not pretending we're the finished article, but it takes a good team to beat us."