Cardiff’s win over Munster is merely a starting point to where the Blue and Blacks want to be, according to Dai Young.
The Blue and Blacks secured victory on the opening weekend of the BKT United Rugby Championship, with Aled Summerhill’s score adding to first half efforts from Kristian Dacey and Max Llewellyn.
While Young is positive to see his side coming out on top, showing signs of bouncing back following a disappointing 2021/22 season, he still insists there needs to be improvements as the capital club now prepare for next week’s trip to Glasgow.
“First and foremost, you’ve got to be happy with the win. There are a lot of things to work on but we knew it was going to be tough,” explained the former Wales prop.
“They don’t get into the top six in Europe and in the URC by having a poor squad.
“The threat was more or less the same sort of situation as last season with the Scarlets, and they came down here and did a job.
“We knew they had a couple of big names missing but we certainly didn’t underestimate them and they showed why you shouldn’t underestimate them.
“They were really physical and we knew, first and foremost, that we needed to match their pack - which I thought we did. We did a decent job there.
“We felt that we could get on the outside and we did that on numerous occasions. We were probably one pass away from getting a couple of other scores.
“When the game was tight we held our nerve, which last year we were incapable of doing.
“We were our own worst enemy again today and I did feel we caused ourselves problems.
“We had a couple of loose kicks, which went out on the full, and we kicked in-field after defending for long periods, which was always going to leave us short on numbers. But we found ways to scramble and get back.
“It was nowhere near a perfect performance by any stretch but as I said after the game, let’s not be happy with that because that probably won’t win us too many more games.
“However, we can look at it as a starting point and look to keep improving.”
Cardiff lost wing Owen Lane in the moments leading up to kick off, as he pulled out with an ankle injury, while new signing Liam Williams was forced off in pain after 25 minutes following a bright start to his time with the Blue and Blacks debut.
“The director of rugby gave an update on the duo: “For Liam, it looks like a collarbone injury and it doesn’t look good.
“They need to look at it first, obviously, but it looks like quite a significant innjury.
“I have no ideas on time-scales or how bad it is, but he’s not someone that comes off easily.
“He was in a lot of pain and the doctor feels it’s definitely a collarbone issue. How bad that is, we’ll find out more in the next 24 hours.
“But it looks significant. You hope it’s not as bad as it looked but you’d be surprised if he’s on the field anytime soon.
“We lost two of our back three within the first 25 minutes. But we’ve come to learn how to deal with those situations.
“Hopefully the news around Owen Lane is not too bad. He rolled his ankle in the warm up and it will probably be touch-and-go whether he’s going to make it against Glasgow next week.
“But I don’t think it’s going to be much longer than that.”