Delaney adopting the Venter technique

GLENN Delaney has transformed the Scarlets defence this season and cites former Saracens boss Brendan Venter as his inspiration.

The former Nottingham, London Irish, Canterbury and Highlanders coach has made a huge impact since arriving in Llanelli as Brad Mooar’s assistant in the summer.

The Scarlets have made a strong start to the season winning five of their first six PRO14 fixtures, with Delaney’s offensive defence a key part of their early success.

“The philosophy from me is we want to put the opposition under as much pressure as we can to get the ball back as quickly as we can,” said Delaney.

“I played with Brendan Venter and he was also my coach at London Irish. He brought the ‘out to in’ defence to the UK and it was totally different. In fact I’d go as far as to say it was revolutionary. He was ahead of his time in that regard.

“I’ve taken a lot of from Brendan with regards to the way I’m coaching today. I enjoyed playing under Brendon and as a player I believed his coaching was the way forward.”

Apart from one heavy defeat in Edinburgh the west Walians have proved a tough nut to crack in defence, with the backline looking threatening especially from turnover ball.

“I want to make sure that defensively we are feeding our attack and giving it a chance to grow,” Delaney said. “We’ve got some wonderful attacking players and our job on the defensive side of the ball is to give them as much chance as we can. Line-speed is a massive friend in inclement weather.

“If it’s wet it’s great, if it’s windy it’s great. The objective of it is to put skillsets under maximum pressure.

“The only way we can do that is to be aggressive and the boys want to be aggressive. We’ve all bought into it. It’s going to keep getting better.”