Young's revolution at Cardiff gives hope for future of Welsh game

When Dylan Thomas dreamed up the character of a funeral director for Under Milk Wood, he christened him Evans the Death and gave him a single, chilling line: "Where's your dignity? Lie down." Evans, his black-gloved hand pressed hard on the "coffin of his breast", might have been addressing his country's national sport, the demise of which has been the major topic of discussion on every back page and radio phone-in, in every pub and on every street corner, in the eight days since Llanelli and Swansea staged the most laughably inept and pathetically one-sided local derby in living memory.

Welsh rugby has gone sepulchral on itself before – pretty much on an annual basis since England started winning in Cardiff without breaking sweat. But this latest exercise in collective mourning is different, for the very good reason that the public has finally turned on the players, rather than the politicians. There is a clear theme to the criticism, and it goes something like this: well-paid young men, awash with ready cash in a low-wage economy, have fallen prey to the big-fish, small-pond syndrome. They are unfit, indisciplined, under-motivated and work-shy; their performance in the bar, where they move like Linford Christie, contrasts sharply with their efforts on the pitch, where they would struggle to keep pace with Agatha Christie.

The rot runs high up the wall. Steve Hansen, the national coach, has dropped two forwards of boundless talent from his squad: Darren Morris, the Swansea prop, for being overweight, and Chris Wyatt, the athletic Llanelli lock, for failing to attend a recent fitness session. On their day, Morris and Wyatt are as hot as anything in Britain: Morris would have been a first-choice Test Lion in 2001 had he not gone missing in action when the fur started flying during a build-up match against New South Wales in Sydney, while Wyatt's form a year before that tour suggested he would be among the first names on the flight list. As things stand, both are on the plane to Nowheresville.

And now, the clubs who have made all the impact of a wet halibut on the Celtic League must enter the shark-infested waters of the Heineken Cup. Are things really as dark as they appear? Is there no hope? A Swansea supporter, shedding tears of humiliation following last week's surrender at Stradey Park while simultaneously quaking at the thought of this afternoon's Heineken encounter with Montferrand, would offer some bleak answers to those questions. But at Cardiff, where the French champions Biarritz play this evening, the competitive sap is on the rise.

No one knows more about the demands and responsibilities of professional rugby than David Young, a dual-code international, a double Lion, a former Welsh captain and now, at the grand age of 35, coach of the richest and most powerful club in the land. He is not the sort to point the finger of blame at others or deliver sweeping pronouncements on the state of the game in the Principality or bombard the public prints with his ideas on the future restructuring of a sport entombed in its past, but he is perfectly happy to discuss his ideas and principles as they relate to Cardiff – ideas and principles that should strike a chord far beyond the confines of the Arms Park.

"We've always been doom-and-gloom merchants in Wales," said the celebrated prop forward this week, a few minutes after naming himself on the bench as emergency front-row cover for the Biarritz game. "The cup is always half-empty in these parts, never known it any different. But speaking purely from a Cardiff perspective on the eve of another European campaign, we're not frightened of anyone – French, English, whoever. I think sides like Neath and Llanelli will also compete very aggressively in this competition, and that is good for the Welsh game in general. We're a tribal bunch down here, but when it comes to the Heineken we like to put on a united front. It grieves me to say this, but I really wanted Llanelli to win the tournament last season.

"Expectations of Cardiff have been fairly low: new coach, big names going out, no big names coming in. But I believe a club needs a backbone, and you don't create a backbone by signing a stack of overseas players and hoping they gel together. I want a core of players who live locally, drink locally, breathe the local air; people who have a huge feeling for the club and what it means to the community. This year is all about putting that in place, about putting the right values into the right people while they are still young enough to absorb them. Unless you are very close to the club, you wouldn't know about some of the talent we have here. But believe me, it's exciting.

"There has been a change of focus, definitely, and that is my doing. People warned me it would be difficult, that some people would not commit themselves to my idea of what the club is about. But I've been a professional since I went to rugby league in 1990 – a long time, in union terms – and I know all the tricks players like to play. You can't bullshit a bullshitter: I trotted out the excuses and tried the short cuts and pulled the stunts, and learned that none of them work. Professionalism is a deal between the player and the club, and while I'm no rant-and-raver and no ogre, I expect certain standards. If someone decides those standards are not for him, I don't want him here." Perhaps one or two of Welsh rugby's more senior club coaches should have the courage of those convictions.

Young is new to all this. Having taken his first coaching steps and explored some initial ideas at Abercynon – "real coaching is when your loose-head prop and your best lock forward don't turn up on a Tuesday night and you're left wondering what to do with the people who have made the effort" – he would happily have spent a constructive season or two understudying Rudy Joubert at the Arms Park. But Joubert upped sticks and returned to South Africa, leaving his inexperienced No 2 to get on with it.

But it may just be that Cardiff have unwittingly aligned themselves with a bright new trend. Some of the most vibrant clubs in the British game are fronted by figures of recent playing vintage who speak the language of their employees and have first-hand understanding of the psychology of the modern rugby professional: Jim Mallinder and Steve Diamond at Sale, Conor O'Shea and Brendan Venter at London Irish, Phil Davies and Jon Callard at Leeds, Todd Blackadder at Edinburgh. Indeed, Venter and Blackadder are still going concerns as players.

"I'm not on any big power trip here, and time will tell whether I'm on the right track and sending out the correct signals," Young said. "Who knows? Maybe the Welsh game will go provincial over the next year, which would change everything. It may even be the right thing to do, but that's for the politicians to decide, not me. I have to operate in the circumstances as I find them, and this week, that means preparing a side to take the big step forward demanded by Heineken Cup rugby. I'm glad we're starting at home, where we usually perform pretty well. A strong showing against a side as good as Biarritz could do a lot for us."

Is Young fit, though? Thanks to the injuries affecting his front-row fraternity, he could find himself on the field within a minute of kick-off. "I did all the pre-season training, so I'm as fit as I could expect to be, given that I haven't been playing. And I've certainly prepared myself for all eventualities, to the point that I've stopped going out on a Friday night." A pause, and then the pay-off line. "I go out twice on Thursdays, instead."