Pivac demands more from his Scarlets
SCARLETS were forced to twice come from behind to beat 14-man Benetton, leaving head coach Wayne Pivac far from convinced about their title chances.
The Italians had lock Irne Herbst dismissed by Scottish referee Lloyd Linton after 26 minutes for an illegal charge into Samson Lee at a ruck and then went down to 13 men for 10 minutes in the second half when livewire hooker Hami Faiva saw yellow for a head-high tackle.
It meant that neither coach was happy at the end of a game that produced 10 tries. The half-dozen bagged by the 2017 champions at least saved their blushes.
“Even in the warm-up the players were different and they know they didn’t play well,” said Pivac.
“We knew we were going to make a slow start to the season due to the amount of time we gave the players off and we set a goal of 10 points from the opening three games and we’ve got that. We’re happy with the five points, but not with the overall performance.”
Benetton arrived unbeaten after wins over the Dragons and Blues and were hell bent on making it a Welsh treble at a ground where they almost won in the Champions Cup last season. They went toe to toe in an opening quarter that produced four tries.
James Davies made the break that sent Gareth Davies racing to the posts for the opening score and Leigh Halfpenny did the same to allow Kieron Fonotia to score. But Benetton props Nicola Quaglio and Simone Ferrari then muscled in on the act with tries to put their side 14-12 ahead.
The red card gave Scar-
lets a significant advantage and Gareth Davies ran in a second on the stroke of half-time to edge ahead, 1714. Back came 14-man Benetton with two tries in three minutes to open up a nine point lead at the start of the second half.
Wing Monty Ioane made the most of a dropped pass by Hadleigh Parkes on halfway and full-back Luca Sperandio raced onto a superb kick ahead by Dewaldt Duvenage to score.
The yellow card gave the home side a chance to strike back and Johnny McNicholl crossed in the corner from a scrum and Halfpenny’s conversion cut the gap to two points.
Ed Kennedy then rounded off a superb break by fellow Aussie Paul Asquith with a try that regained the lead before Tom Pyrdie made it six in the last minute latching onto the end of a perfect cross kick from Sam Hidalgo-Clyne.