They had just been beaten for the seventh time on the bounce, and as chairman Peter Thomas put it at the time: "The Blues have been in the doldrums for too long."
Nobody could accuse him of exaggeration. A grand old club, famous for beating just about all the major touring countries from the All Blacks down, they have not finished in the top half of the GUINNESS PRO12 table in any of the last five seasons.
They have been nowhere near the play-offs since falling one point short of the top four for the inaugural knock-out competition in 2010.
Their start this season was always going to be challenging enough, without the added handicap of having to negotiate the opening weeks of the season on the road.
The use of the BT Sport Cardiff Arms Park as a Rugby World Cup fanzone left new head coach Danny Wilson wrestling with an even tougher Blues initiation than would otherwise have been the case.
It meant tackling a schedule more punishing than any team had ever been subjected to in the GUINNESS PRO12.
After a landslide home win over Zebre on the opening weekend, the Blues next four matches added up to a grand tour of Ireland's four provinces - Leinster, Connacht, Munster and Ulster in that order.
They lost them all, taking two bonus points from the trip to Galway and prising one from their Friday night in Belfast.
That was one more than they managed from the Zebre return in Italy at Halloween. While Cardiff's finest were heading towards the bottom with seven defeats out of the first eight, Scarlets and Connacht were winning seven out of their opening eight.
The idea that the Blues would, at best, have a say in those who did make it all the way to the play-offs seemed too fanciful for words. As for a top-four challenge from so far back; that seemed to require the stuff of miracles.
Since then, the possibility has become marginally less miraculous with the passing of every round. The Blues and their long-suffering fans are, at long last, daring to dream.
Since that seventh straight defeat, to the Ospreys in Swansea on November 28, they have won all four GUINNESS PRO12 matches.
The run that started against Connacht at the BT Sport Cardiff Arms Park in early December has now accounted for the Dragons, Scarlets, and most recently, high-flying Edinburgh.
"We have some momentum now," Wilson said, after a significant victory for his non-international players with so many absent on Six Nations duty.
"We will keep building performances and see where we can go."
If they keep winning and those above them keep falling over one another, who knows how far they can go between now and mid-May. The Blues are still ten points away from the top four but that represents a mighty improvement on where they had been.
The lop-sided nature of their start means they can look forward to a long run down the home strait. Of their nine remaining matches, six are at home.
Three of the biggest, against Leinster, Ulster and Munster, take place during the Six Nations when their Irish opponents will be far from full strength.
The same, of course, goes for the Blues. Despite missing a hefty nine-man Welsh contingent headed by Sam Warburton, they put a stop to Edinburgh's hot run on a night when Scotland's leading contenders were thankful enough to get away with the solitary point to keep them fourth.
Nobody in the GUINNESS PRO12 has scored more tries than the Blues. Dan Fish's second minute touchdown - the fullback's seventh in all matches this season - was the Blues' 32nd in the league, a figure equalled only by Connacht.
John Muldoon's men needed four against the Scarlets in Galway to match the Blues' total, their five-pointer allowing them to draw level with their Welsh victims at the top.
Not for the first time this season, Scarlets paid a price for indiscipline. Two more instances of yellow fever brought their GUINNESS PRO12 sin-bin tally to 17, six more than the second worst offenders, Zebre.
Leinster would have gone clear at the top had their seven-match winning streak not come to an end in the mud and rain of Rodney Parade.
A night of Welsh defiance featuring the Newport Gwent Dragons in their finest 'they-shall-not-pass' mood, allied to Ashton Hewitt's status as a matchwinning wing, proved too much for a Leinster team decimated by Six Nations call-ups.
Their losing bonus point vanished with Jason Tovey's last penalty, the fly-half going through the card to deny Leinster the point that would have put them back on top. Tovey's try, conversion, drop goal and penalties made him the first in the GUINNESS PRO12 this season to do so.
Ulster made the most of their trip to Treviso, seizing all five points on what proved to be an auspicious occasion - the accomplished Stuart Olding making his first GUINNESS PRO12 appearance since rupturing knee ligaments late last season.
While Munster settled for one point fewer against Zebre, Gregor Townsend's defending champions, heavily depleted by Scotland demands, rounded off the weekend with the first GUINNESS PRO12 draw of the season.
The Warriors had been on course to complete a hat-trick of wins in Wales following those in Cardiff and at Parc y Scarlets in the Champions' Cup until Ospreys' full back Dan Evans struck near the end.
His converted try proved enough to avert the imminent danger of a second successive GUINNESS PRO12 defeat on home soil following Leinster's emphatic win in Swansea earlier in the month.
Ulster and the Dragons have the stage all to themselves this week. A home win in Belfast on Friday night would put Ireland's northern province out on their own at the top, clear of Scarlets, Connacht and Leinster.
For Rory Best, it would be a suitably appropriate way for Ulster to mark their inestimable hooker's debut as captain of Ireland against Wales in Dublin on Sunday.
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