Boys against men as 7-try Scotsmen rout Scarlets
THE Scarlets’ unbeaten start to the season ended in brutal fashion as they were thrashed by Edinburgh at Murrayfield.
It was men against boys as Brad Mooar’s side were taken to the cleaners by a physically superior Edinburgh side. A hat-trick of tries from Duhan van der Merwe plus scores from Michael Willemse (two), Mark Bennett and Eroni Sau along with 11 points from the boots of Simon Hickey and Jaco van der Walt got Edinburgh over the line.
All the Scarlets could muster was a try from Marc Jones and two points from Dan Jones. Edinburgh came out of the blocks firing with three tries in the first quarter of the game. The first came after a cracking brake from van der Merwe before the ball was put through the hands with Henry Pyrgos’ pass eventually putting the giant South African wing over.
And they were soon celebrating their second with powerful No 8 Nick Haining powering his way into the Scarlets 22 before drawing his man allowing van der Merwe to touch down. Kieran Hardy then made very little effort to stop Willemse scoring Edinburgh’s third try from short range.
The Scarlets had a try disallowed not long before the interval when Hardy ran in unopposed from 35 metres out. But the television match official decided to intervene with the replays showing Taylor Davies’ pass to the scrum-halfwas forward.
Edinburgh made the Scarlets pay as they raced up the touchline with Scotland international Bennett running through some poor tackling for the bonus point try. The Scarlets were given a lifeline on the stroke of half-time when Fraser McKenzie was sent to the sin bin for a shoulder charge on Juandre Kruger.
Hickey extended Edinburgh’s lead with a successful penalty in the early stages of the second-half. It took the Scarlets a full hour to register their first points and it came when replacement hooker Jones burrowed his way over the try line from short range after a period of sustained pressure by the visitors. But the hosts hit back with Willemse powering his way over the line from short range courtesy of a powerful driving lineout.
Van der Merwe rubbed further salt into the Scarlets’ wounds as he crossed for his hat-trick at the far left-hand corner. And Fijian winger Sau scored a try on his debut as he ran in unopposed from 40 metres out.