No sting in tail of Dai’s departure

WASPS chief executive (sport) Stephen Vaughan has shed light on the conversation he had with Dai Young that concluded with the director of rugby ultimately leaving the club.

Vaughan and Young engaged in a meeting shortly before the weekly media session at Wasps’ Broadstreet RFC training ground base in the build-up to last weekend’s trip to Leicester Tigers.

Young was subsequently withdrawn from media duties and defence coach Ian Costello answered questions instead. Less than 24 hours later, CoventryLive broke the exclusive story that Young had ‘stepped away’ from first duties.

A week later, Wasps confirmed the director of rugby’s departure in an official statement and Vaughan explained what happened in the meeting.

Wasps’ former boss Dai Young

“We starting planning for next season and looking at one or two things and it’s not the first conversation that we’ve had,” said Vaughan, who joined Wasps from Gloucester last summer.

“It was a very open conversation, and I think it became a conversation that ended up in a situation where we felt for both parties, maybe, the next best step is to potentially press the reset button at a time where we can scope and plan for next season.

“Doing it this way there’s no end-of-season panic, ‘what are we going to do for next season’, it gives people the time to operate within a slightly different environment, to try some different things and ultimately gives us a bit of time to bring the right person in.”

Vaughan went on to explain he held regular meetings with Young and explained it was an ‘adult conversation’, rather than any fall out occurring.