David Young knows that nothing short of a win at the Stoop on Sunday will do
David Young knows that nothing short of a win at the Stoop on Sunday will do
The Blues travel to the Stoop on Sunday to face the Harlequins and Cardiff Blues Director of Rugby, David Young knows that his team must pick up a win if they are to qualify for the knock out stages in Europe.
Speaking ahead of the match Young said,
“I think realistically we’re playing for a place in the Amlin Challenge Cup. Mathematically the Heineken Cup is possible but it is a long shot”
“However, the Amlin Challenge Cup is still a European competition and there are still some really good teams in it.”
“I want to make sure we win this game on the weekend, and if we’re not good enough for the main competition, we can still hopefully make it through to the second tier competition.”
“We are not counting our chickens as we know Harlequins away will be a tough game. They haven’t had a great Heineken Cup and they are a much better team than their performances have shown.”
“Who knows what team they’ll pick, that’s the first thing, they’ve got a big game the week after so where their priorities lie I don’t know. They haven’t won a game in the Heineken Cup so they’ll want to end on a high.”
“No one likes to lose a game at home so I imagine they’ll want to build a bit of momentum going into a very busy and important time of the year for them.”
“Whilst it would be a disappointment not to qualify for the Heineken quarters, four out of six wins wouldn’t bad. Losing to Toulouse away was one of those games and losing to Sale away by only a point was the other, I’m not going to beat myself up about that and I’m not going to beat the players up over it either.”
“This year’s campaign shows winning your home games and getting something away just isn’t enough sometimes.”
“If we can get this next away win and we had a losing bonus point in the Sale match, that’s just one game (Toulouse) where we came away without any points, and it shows just how this competition has gone and how hard it is to get out of the group stages.”
The team will be announced on www.cardiffblues.com at 12.00pm