The I's take on it:
Dai Young steps back at Wasps after alarming drain of talent and form at Ricoh Arena
Director of rugby has been relieved of duties for 'an interim period' and i understands the change is related solely to rugby matters
Wasps’ director of rugby Dai Young has been relieved of his duties for “an interim period” ahead of his team’s big Premiership derby match at Leicester this Saturday, as mystery surrounds the Welshman’s future at the Coventry-based club.
Young was scheduled to handle Wasps’ pre-match media conference as normal on Monday, but he withdrew without notice or explanation, and the club’s defence coach Ian Costello fronted the session instead.
Wasps issued a short official statement yesterday: “Director of Rugby Dai Young will be stepping back from first-team duties for an interim period. Lee Blackett will step up to Interim Head Coach. Further announcements will be made in due course.”
The Coventry Telegraph reported a senior management meeting was called at Wasps’ Ricoh Arena stadium on Tuesday morning followed by the club’s players being addressed at the training ground in Broadstreet.
There was no reference to the developments on the club’s website or social-media accounts.
But a well-placed source told i the change is related solely to rugby matters.
Young’s team went into the recent mid-winter Premiership break apparently in good heart after a 30-26 win away to Worcester. But they have lost six of their nine league matches this season and were knocked out at the pool stage of the second-grade European Challenge Cup.
Including last season, Wasps have won 13 and drawn one of their last 46 matches in all competitions.
Young, the 52-year-old former Wales and Lions prop forward, joined the then London club in summer 2011 and fought a successful battle against relegation with a youthful team in his first season.
Wasps moved up the table each year thereafter and topped the Premiership in 2017, only to lose the grand final to Exeter Chiefs in extra time at Twickenham.
Young has yet to win a trophy with the six-times league champions, the club has slumped from being Premiership semi-finalists again in 2018 to eighth place at the end of the last campaign, and there has been an alarming drain of talent in the past two years.
England stars Elliot Daly and Nathan Hughes left last summer, to Saracens and Bristol respectively, while internationals Willie le Roux, Kurtley Beale, Danny Cipriani, James Haskell, Will Stuart, Marty Moore, Joe Simpson, Christian Wade and Michele Campagnaro have also moved on.
They are currently ninth in the Premiership, six points above Leicester, although neither side have to worry about relegation as Saracens are already doomed to that fate.
The 37-year-old backs coach Blackett joined Wasps in 2015 from Championship club Rotherham, where he was the youngest head coach in the top two tiers of English rugby.
And former Wasps scrum-half Rob Howley has been linked with a return as head coach when his betting-related suspension ends this June.
Young told The Rugby Paper last September his current Wasps contract to 2023 would be his last and he was hoping to land an international job after that.
Always a Wasp