Recruitment at heart of problems - Ryan - Sport in brief

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The west country club lost their fourth successive Twickenham final as rampant Cardiff were crowned EDF Energy Cup champions with a crushing 50-12 victory.

Ryan previously excused past failures as being part of a learning curve, but pulled no punches when he declared his team requires radical surgery, saying: "This journey is coming to an end and I don't mind taking a step back to start another journey. We've been successful in reaching finals, we just haven't won trophies. We must start the journey again with another group of players."

He added: "Previous encounters have been about learning, today was about reality.

"We deserve credit for reaching finals year-in, year-out but I don't want to keep losing them.

"This group isn't good enough to compete at this level. We have to accept that and it will be part of our review over the summer.

"You have got to recognise when the learning process is over and I think everyone at this club is at that point.

"We will look at taking the club in a different direction with a different group of people in the next year. We must address the problem with recruitment.

"It's no accident that some of this squad haven't gone on to become internationals and it's no accident we don't have five or six Lions contenders."