Winning the South Wales derby, and in such emphatic fashion, should be the pinnacle of any week for a Cardiff City manager. For Omer Riza, it's been one of the toughest weeks of his life.

On Saturday afternoon, his players did him proud. Callum Robinson scored twice before Dimitrios Goutas headed home to seal a 3-0 win over Swansea, producing their best derby performance in a generation.

Sadly, this week Riza announced the passing of his father, just two days before the biggest game in the calendar. City supporters threw their backing behind the manager throughout the afternoon, chanting "Omer Riza, that one was for your dad" and "Omer Riza's barmy army!" which the manager acknowledged, applauding the crowd. Sign up to our daily Cardiff City newsletter here.

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It's understandable that Riza was emotionally charged, given the week he had endured. He clocked up miles on the M4, driving back and forth from Cardiff to London, taking training, press duties and announcing signings, while also trying to be at his father's bedside for his final moments.

Riza was sent off for a melee with Goncalo Franco deep in the second half. The Bluebirds manager advanced on to the field during a heated exchange with the Portuguese and was shown a red card, meaning his assistant, Tom Ramasut, had to take press duties.

"It's been an extremely difficult week," Ramasut began. "His father passed away on Thursday, he drove back home on Wednesday to spend some time with him, we trained Thursday, he did media with you guys and the signing of Yousef (Salech) and then he drove back home to spend the last moments with his father.

"He drove back down and prepared for the game on Friday. What's been such a warming feeling is the support he's had from the players, staff, togetherness we've shown and he's taken a lot of comfort from that. It's been a real challenging week.

"I'm sure his father will be looking down. I think he felt like he had a responsibility and [taking charge of the game] was the right thing to do. We talked about it as players and staff and how we'd built a resilience - we've seen that over the last six games unbeaten.

"There are players there who have played many derbies now and know what it means for the fans, the club, the whole city.

"It's really heartwarming because I know there's been a lot of great messages from fans. It'll be really warming for him and you see that here today. I feel like the fans have seen the players and the squad show a lot of fight and really put a shift in for the shirt. That encompassed how everyone was feeling - how they showed support for him was fantastic."

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Speaking about the incident between Franco and Riza, and the melee between the players after the final whistle, Ramasut added: "There's a huge amount of emotion in this game for both cities and both clubs. That's understandable and that's what makes it the fixture it is. We want to see that passion from our players and fans - that's exactly what we want to see. We have just got to be careful we don't step over the line.

"Omer may have felt that some of the players might have done that, they might not have been disrespectful and that might have just triggered and flared some of that emotion at the end. I know those players were standing up for their manager and that's what you saw at the end.

"I'd like to think [Swansea players] know the situation the manager is in. Then whether anything was said, you've just got to be mindful of that. If that was the trigger, I'm not 100% sure, but there could have been things said. We want it to be full of passion and emotion, that's what it is, but it's always done with an element of respect."

Asked to clarify whether there were comments specifically about Riza's father, Ramasut said: "No. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is there was that collision, but there might have been other things in the heat of the moment - normal things you'd expect in a derby. But you've also got to be respectful of someone's situation, in my eyes."

Cardiff carried their game plan out to a tee. They showed passion and fire, but controlled things expertly and were clinical in front of goal, too. Given the limited time they had, with Riza's personal situation and the fact they had a midweek game against Watford, too, it was mightily impressive.

“We had a game plan. Omer put that into place after the Watford game on Tuesday. It was a short turnaround but did our preparation," Ramasut added.

"I thought the story of the game was it was pretty cagey, we probably gave them too much time in the first 20 minutes. We had a few tweaks and it allowed us to put some pressure on them. We went into half-time and there was momentum growing in our favour.

"You could just sense in the dressing room there was a real momentum and real belief going into the second half. If you show that fight and togetherness, then we have plenty of quality to win the game. That’s exactly what Callum Robinson did with some unbelievable touches to finish. We didn’t just sit back after the first goal.

"I’m really pleased for Dimi (Goutas) to get that goal from a corner – we’ve been waiting for that because he’s really dangerous at set-pieces.”