Make or break for Warriors in Llanelli

SOMEBODY’S Guinness PRO12 title ambitions are going to take a huge, possibly decisive knock when Glasgow Warriors travel to the Scarlets on Saturday. Both teams know it; three rounds before the end of the regular season campaign and the pressure is up almost to the level of a final.

Glasgow leapfrogged this week’s opponents when they won their catch-up game in Italy last week, so they hold a slight advantage but with two away fixtures against top-four rivals in the final three matches, they have to keep picking up points.

Kenny Murray, one of the Glasgow assistant coaches, said: “Scarlets have had an excellent season, as everyone knows. They’re playing some really good rugby, a lot of exciting rugby throughout the season. We’ve seen them a lot this year having played them on a number of occasions so we know what they’re about, we know their strengths and weaknesses and we’ll be sure to give everything.

“The target’s always to get in the top four. We can only do what we can in the next three games, some of it may be outwith our control, it could depend on how Leinster do as well.

“It would be great to get a home semi-final, it gives you that extra advantage: home crowd, home surface. We’ll be striving to do that; we have three games left and we believe we can win all three, and win them well.

“They’ve had a positive season and they’ll be confident about playing us. They’ve had some good games against us this year. They’re on their home ground and they’ll see it as an opportunity to get a win.”

What makes this game particularly tough is that for the Scarlets it may be last-chance saloon.

After slipping up at home to Cardiff Blues in their last outing, another defeat could push them out of the play-off race altogether even though they have spent a good chunk of the season in first place.