Danny Wilson says he would have leapt at the offer of an unbeaten start to the Cardiff Blues’ Guinness Pro 12 campaign – despite dismissing their latest display as “average”.

The Blues head coach saw his team secure their second place in the table after an edgy 23-21 victory in Italy against Zebre on Saturday.

It lacked the authority of their previous victories, but Wilson admitted: “We’re four out of four going into a home game and if you had offered me that at the start of the season I would have bitten your hand off.
“There are positives to take but we definitely need to look to improve the performance going into Leinster next week.”

A lively first half saw Guglielmo Palazzani’s close-range try give Zebre the lead before Blaine Scully and Matthew Morgan got the Blues on top at the break.

Tom James’ score early in the second half looked to have sealed the contest but when Giulio Bisegni and Giovanbattista Venditti dotted down, the visitors were forced to hold on for the final five minutes.

Wilson added: “It’s a long season, there are a lot of tough games and we will have blips along the way whether losses or a poor performance. Today was an average performance but a win and we have to take the positives from that.

“The boys summed it up in the changing room. Our leaders spoke and said we’ve come away with a win which was the important thing but it was not as good a performance as we have come to expect.

“We were a little bit sloppy in patches but when we stuck to the game plan we scored three good tries. When we got carried away and lost the ball in the final third against a decent defence we ended up camped in our own 22.

“We don’t underestimate coming here. It’s a bit different to playing the Italian sides at home, they maybe don’t travel consistently but here they are a very different side and a tough side to beat.”