And from today's Telegraph.
Former Wasps director of rugby, Dai Young, has said that he bears no grudges for the parting of the ways last February after nine years in charge. He, however, also said that he would have loved to have been part of the set-up as the club rallied to get through to the Premiership final, where they lost to Exeter Chiefs.
Speaking for the first time about the break-up, the newly appointed boss at Cardiff Blues also disclosed that he felt "a bit burnt-out," at the time and that Wasps "definitely needed freshening-up."
Young had been a forceful and stabilising presence during his time at the club, dealing with near bankruptcy, overseeing an 80 mile relocation to Coventry and steering the team to three Premiership play-offs in his last four seasons. Results, though, had taken a dip as Wasps won only 13 of Young’s final 47 games in charge in all competitions.
They had lost seven of their opening 10 games of the Premiership campaign and were lying tenth when Young’s attack coach, Lee Blackett, took over. Under Blackett, Wasps surged up the table and ran Exeter close before losing 19-13 in the Covid-delayed final in October.
"People forget those coaches [Blackett and Ian Costello] were the coaches that I employed and took a lot of stick for when things weren’t going well," said Young whose first match in charge of the Blues is against the Scarlets in Llanelli on Friday.
"[It was said] that they weren’t good enough or experienced enough. I was 100 per cent confident that they were really good coaches and deserved to be there. It has vindicated my loyalty to them. You try to develop the guys [coaches] and in a way as a director of rugby, you coach yourself out of a job.
"Of course when you see Wasps going to the final I’d have loved to be a part of that, I’d be a liar to say I wouldn’t. As we all know, I signed all that squad. It was great for them to start showing what we all knew they could do. We’d gone through a sticky period.
"I was confident we’d come out of it. There are no bad feelings. The reality is, though, that after nine years, it needed freshening up. We had discussed various ways of doing it. We had a lot of staff out of contract and I didn’t feel it was my place to start employing people for the long term when I wasn’t sure I would be there.
"When Saracens were relegated [for salary cap breaches], it felt the right time to do it. There are no grudges. I’m still a Wasps fan."
Young had no initial intention to return to the club where he was once captain and also served as director of rugby. His long-term appointment has yet to be finalised although it appears that there is a willingness on both sides to make that happen.
“In an ideal world, that is something I’d like to progress,” said Young, who expects to have injured Wales back-row forwards, Josh Navidi and Ellis Jenkins, at his disposal imminently as the Blues look to build on a promising performance over Scarlets 10 days ago and push themselves into contention for Pro 14 play-offs later in the season.
“This Blues squad is not good enough at the moment to make a dent in Europe but I’d like to think that we could be pushing for the play-offs,” said Young.
“Welsh regions have got to have the appetite to be at the business end of competitions.”
Topic: Saracens helped Dai make decision to leave (Read 1564 times)
Always a Wasp