Parkes and celebration for Wales’ new recruit
NEW ZEALAND-born centre Hadleigh Parkes celebrated his Wales call-up by playing a starring role as the Scarlets recorded a bonus-point victory over Cardiff Blues at Parc y Scarlets.
Wayne Pivac’s side have made winning a habit in the PRO14, with last season’s champions having emerged victorious from 22 of their last 25 league fixtures.
The Scarlets’ tries came courtesy of Parkes, hooker Ryan Elias, replacement scrum-half Jonathan Evans and Welsh rugby’s form winger Steffan Evans.
To their credit the Blues contributed heavily to this Welsh derby with tries from Willis Halaholo and replacement scrum-half Lloyd Williams.
The Scarlets may have floundered in Europe, but they had too much for a Blues side who in contrast to their West Walian rivals, had recorded two notable European wins against Lyon and Toulouse albeit in the second tier Challenge Cup.
Parkes broke open the Blues defence, brushing Matthew Morgan aside in the process for the game’s first try after Aaron Shingler had made the initial inroads.
The Blues’ job became a lot harder when No.8 Nick Williams was sent to the sin-bin for a dangerous shoulder charge on Tadhg Beirne.
Pivac’s Scarlets had a try disallowed when Evans was judged to have knocked the ball on before Scott Williams dotted down only for the referee to come back for a penalty.
But the home side scored immediately after with Elias crossing as a result of a powerful driving lineout.
The Blues very nearly got themselves back into the game on the stroke of half time when Evans knocked the ball out of Halaholo’s grasp as he was stretching out to score.
The centre’s near miss meant the Scarlets turned around 18-3 up at half-time.
Despite being dominated physically in the first half, the Blues came out firing in the second and took control of the third quarter with the midfield pairing of Halaholo and Ray Lee-Lo punching a series of holes into the Scarlets defence.
Halaholo made up for his first-half knock-on by getting the Blues back into the game with a try from 30 metres out following a beautiful offload off the ground from lock Seb Davies.
The pass was similar to the quality of Davies’ rugby idol Sonny Bill Williams.
Danny Wilson’s Blues hit back again to narrow the gap to one point when replacement scrum-half Williams was gifted the ball
from Johnny McNicholl who hesitated when under pressure in his own 22.
But the Blues’ resurgence was short lived when Jonathan Evans scored as a result of a perfectly weighted grubber kick from his namesake Steffan.
The try followed some neat handling from replacement full-back Paul Asquith.
Wales wing Evans then made sure of the win with the bonus-point try with just 10 minutes remaining. The Scarlets had gone through a number of phases following a penalty after Nick Williams brought an opponent down in the air. The ball then went wide with captain Scott Williams flicking the ball on for Steffan Evans to pierce through the Blues defence to score.
Apart from a 20 minute period in the second half, the Scarlets’ pack controlled proceedings and their superior skills behind the scrum were too much for Wilson’s side to cope with.