John Mulvihill believes his side can take confidence following their performance in Sunday's Heineken Champions Cup defeat to Glasgow Warriors.
Cardiff Blues left Scotstoun Stadium with a bonus point, after his side crossed for four tries through Harri Millard, Josh Navidi and an Owen Lane brace.
The head coach was pleased to see a number of players putting their hands up for selection ahead of the final pool stage clash against Lyon next week.
“We’re a good rugby team when we stick to what we plan. We planned to move the ball around a bit to move them around and we got into it with some really nice team tries and the boys will take a lot of confidence out of that, moving forward,” said Mulvihill.
“I think everyone stepped up. I the forwards you had Shane Lewis-Hughes, who was making his first senior start for us, and he was great.
“It was good to see TJ [Tom James] back on the wing and putting in a good shift, Smiler [Matthew Rees] also got the the 40, like he wanted to, and the likes of Harri Millard and Jarrod Evans came back from injury and gave it a good go. We’ve got some good young players in this group.
“We changed the teams up, probably because we needed to give some guys a rest, but the opportunity the boys took tonight will put them in the frame for selection next week against Lyon.
“It was very windy out there, and losing the toss meant we were playing into it in the first half.
“We went into half time at 14-5 and we knew that if we held onto the ball and move it to the right areas of the field that we would get some credit from that, and we managed to do that.
“There were just some basic errors that let us down, and I told the boys afterwards that we’re our own worst enemy at times.
“We were disappointed not to get the win, after getting back to 28-24 with eight minutes to go.
“We let ourselves down a little bit with our discipline, giving away the first six penalties in the second half, which allowed them back into the game.”
Warren Gatland is set to name his squad for the Guinness Six Nations campaign on Tuesday, with a number of Cardiff Blues players in contention for selection, including Lane, who impressed at Scotstoun.
Mulvihill hopes the wing has done enough to force his way into Gatland’s thinking, as he made his first start after recovering from a hamstring injury.
The Australian said: “It’s good to see Owen back fit and healthy, and hopefully it will be third time lucky for him in terms of international selection.
“He was injured in Bilbao and missed out on selection, and the same for the autumn but he did his hamstring.
“If he puts another performance in next week, then I’m sure he’ll be there or thereabouts.”