Welsh rugby boss fires blistering warning and tells squad they're playing for their futures

Cardiff boss Dai Young has put his players on notice ahead of their chance to repair some of the damage from last week’s loss to Welsh rivals Scarlets.

Annoyed by the nature of his side’s performance in the 35-20 defeat to the 14-man Scarlets, Young has been in no mood to mince his words - he delivered this brutal assessment after the match - and continued that theme ahead the reverse fixture at the Arms Park this Saturday. Noise out of the Cardiff camp has been that the debrief session was uncompromising and the man at the top of the organisation has not hidden his displeasure.

In his pre-match press conference for the return game, Young explained that wholesale changes to his squad would not be coming immediately this summer after players were given an extra year on their contracts due to the pay cuts they took during the Covid-19 pandemic. But there will be real opportunity to change personnel throughout next season and as such he said the players had six months to prove their worth.

Young warned: “At the end of the day you review every area and we’ve got a real good coaching group here. We review everything honestly and we look at the work-ons. It wasn’t good enough on the weekend. Obviously, there was an honesty chat around that 60 minutes not being good enough. There wasn’t the normal energy and enthusiasm that we would expect from the players and it’s something I’m not prepared to put up with. The players know that.

“My job is to try and get the best out of the squad. I don’t think we’re achieving that yet but what I’ve said to them is that I’ve come here wanting to help players get better, but they’ve got to want to get better as well. Certainly the last 12 months has been trying to raise the bar and trying to