Cardiff Blues were well and truly humbled in Friday night's pre-season fixture, as Northampton Saints made light work of the team that knocked them out of the EDF Semi Finals just a few months ago.

Dai Young was spot on with his assessment of the Blues performance, telling the BBC,

"We were lucky to be second. In no area of the game; in attack, in defence or at the set piece can we be happy about tonight's performance."

Not only did the home side fail to cross the line for a try, but they didn't even come close.

Admittedly the home side were massively under strength, missing Ben Blair, Tom James, Tom Shanklin, Jamie Roberts, Casey Laulala, Daf Hewitt, Tao' Felise, Gethin Jenkins, Andy Powell and Martyn Williams, but even with those players missing, the performance was inexcusable.

Going forward, they were void of ideas and frankly predictable with Dai Flannagan at 10, while neither Ceri Sweeney nor Sam Norton-Knight made a massive difference in the short time they had at outside half.

The centre partnership of Gareth Thomas, 35, and Dafydd James, 34, was one-dimensional in crash-balling at opportunity meaning the returning Leigh Halfpenny saw little action all evening.

Even the likes of Xavier Rush were guilty of knocking on in unacceptable circumstances, although in fairness Xav was perhaps the Blues single stand-out performer.

It was all too easy for the Saints, who threw the ball about wonderfully scoring some really terrific tries, but they made light work of the Blues defence crossing 5 times on top of 3 penalties and 4 conversions.

Chris Czekaj tried his best at full back, and did enter the line well on several occasions, but his inexperience in the position was obvious to see and he was caught out on a number of times as the Saints targeted the young winger.

There really were no positives to take from the match, other than seeing Norton-knight made his debut and put in some huge kicks from one 22 to another - but even that had its negatives, the new signing barely lasted quarter of an hour before being replaced by Dai Flannagan.

Young's post match comments seemed entirely fitting,

"We have got a lot of work to do but pre-season is the best time to have these poor performances. We are not going to panic but I have said to the players throughout this pre-season that while we did well last season, that is history - we have to go out and prove ourselves again."

With most of the missing players out until October, it's going to be a tough first month for the Blues at the new Cardiff City Stadium.

Cardiff Blues: Chris Czekaj; Richard Mustoe; Dafydd James, Gareth Thomas; Leigh Halfpenny; Dai Flanagan, Gareth Cooper; John Yapp, T Rhys Thomas, Gary Powell, Bradley Davies, Paul Tito (capt), Andries Pretorius, Robin Sowden Taylor, Xavier Rush

Replacements: Darren Morris (for Yapp, 40), Gareth Williams (for TR Thomas, 51), Scott Morgan (for Tiro, 55), Sam Warburton (for Sowden Taylor, 55), Maama Molitika (for Pretorius, 40), Richie Rees (for Cooper, 63), Ceri Sweeney (for Flanagan, 40), Sam Norton Knight (for G Thomas, 63), Ryan Howells (for Halfpenny, 63)

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