MotM: Dan Parks

By Andrew Collins
November 11 2011

Cardiff Blues recorded their 4th victory on French soil with a 26-20 victory over Paris’ Racing Metro. Tries from Tao’ Felise and Alex Cuthbert along with an excellent kicking display from Dan Parks secured the famous victory.

The Blues got their Heineken Cup campaign off to the perfect start, recording a 26-20 victory of France’s Racing Metro. The mega-rich club finished second in the Top 14 last season, and fielded World Cup stars Juan Martin Hernandez, Benjamin Noirot, Juan Imhoff and Lionell Nallet.

Admittedly, they were missing high-profile players such as Sabastien Chabal, Francois Steyn and Mirco Bergamasco, but the Blues themselves were missing Leigh Halfpenny, Martyn Williams, Gavin Henson and lost Jamie Roberts inside the first 15 minutes. Roberts left the field with a groin injury, but it was James Down’s injury which looked particularly nasty, just 3 minutes into the match. His dislocated and broken ankle meant Paul Tito had to play nearly the full 80 minutes.

The Blues were undoubtedly underdogs ahead of the match, but produced one of their most impressive and encouraging attacking performance in the past 2 years. Tom James and Chris Czeakj ran rings around the Metro defence, using a wonderful array of dummies, sidesteps and sheer brute force to keep the Welsh side on the front foot.

However the first try came from the most unlikely of sources. The Blues turned over Racing’s lineout ball 5 metres out, and the ball fell out of the resulting ruck and into the grateful arms of Tao’ Felise who had the simple task of crossing the line unchallenged.

The other try came from Alex Cuthbert, and, as we’re now getting used to seeing when the massive winger crosses the line, the decision had to be given to the TMO. The youngster flirted with the touchline before placing the ball down split seconds before being bundled out.

But despite all the efforts of Czekaj, James and Cuthbert, there was one back who stole the limelight. Dare I say it, but Dan Park was superb. In what was his finest hour since arriving at the region, he produced an accomplished kicking display securing 16 of the Blues 26 points, missing just one kick at goal. And, credit where due, the Aussie-born Scot was even seen mucking in with tackles and rucking – i promise you it’s true, there’s video evidence to back me up!

In truth, the French outfit were quite simply not in the game.

They looked impressive in the first half, Juan Imhoff’s try a wonderful solo effort, if not a bit poor from a Blues point of view. But second half, they didn’t get a whiff of the white line.

Their only points of the half were gifted to them, on both occasions, straight from kick off, with full back Germain slotting two penalties as the Blues infringed immediately after getting a penalty of their own.

The only real danger was that the visitors couldn’t seem to get themselves the safety of a 7-point cushion.

It is without doubt the sort of result that will make Europe take not, and could be the catalyst to mount a serious European challenge. It was a totally deserved 4 points. However, without wishing to put a dampener on such a terrific result, Metro didn’t look that good. For all their status and hype, they failed to deliver a performance and were fortunate to get a losing bonus point.

Full congratulations to our Blues boys, an excellent performance and an even more wonderful result.

France is becoming a welcoming stomping ground for the Cardiff region, the spirit of Marseille lives on; Allez Les Blues!