Signing hopes hit by finance, says Young

CARDIFF Blues boss Dai Young admits he is not in a position to bring in the three or four quality players he needs to make his squad really competitive.

Ideally, Young could do with bringing in some big, powerful, ball-carrying forwards to bolster his pack options for next season.

But financial limitations make this impossible.

The Welsh regions still don’t know their playing budgets for next season, with discussions ongoing over WRU payments.

However, Young is not expecting to have the scope for recruitment even when the figures are finalised.

His words paint a stark picture of the scale of the challenges facing the Welsh regions.

“We are not in a position at this moment in time to recruit players that would make the difference,” he said.

“It’s well documented we don’t know our budgets as yet. I’m not sure where we are on that at the minute.

“But we are not planning to dive into the market and look for players.

“I don’t think we will be in a position to sign people unless the budgets are far better than what has been suggested.

“Obviously, we are looking out there just in case things change and we have got a couple of targets highlighted if that happens.

“Bur the reality is I don’t expect it to change.

“At this moment in time, I am going into next season with the same squad as we’ve had this season.

“We are lucky enough to be in the Champions Cup, but there are some big teams in there that are going to cause us lots of problems if we come up against them.

“They are built on the back of some huge budgets which nobody in Wales is anywhere near.

“All we can do is deal with the cards we have got, which means we have got to develop from within and try and get as much out of the boys that we have got.”

Cardiff are likely to be operating on a budget of just over £7m next season, which is a long way short of the biggest teams in Europe.