WHAT WE LEARNED FROM SCARLETS’ LATEST PRO14 VICTORY

WAYNE Pivac will be telling his Scarlets players to take no notice of the Ospreys’ recent struggles ahead of next weekend’s derby date at the Liberty Stadium, writes Rob Lloyd.

The defending Guinness PRO14 champions made it four wins from five with a thrilling 37-26 victory over Connacht in Llanelli on Friday night, a couple of hours after their arch rivals had slipped to a fourth successive defeat of the campaign against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.

The contrast between Welsh rugby’s Champions Cup representatives has been stark this season.

In the opening month, the Scarlets have played some scintillating rugby, running in 24 tries and racking up 182 points to cement their position among the leading lights in Conference B.

Meanwhile, across the Loughor, the Ospreys have struggled to find any sort of momentum.

The four-times champions have managed just eight tries and 79 points from their five outings and prop up the rest of their division.

The last meeting between the teams saw the Scarlets post a record 40-17 derby victory in Llanelli – sending them soaring into last season’s play-offs.

But as attention turns to what is always one of the most hotlyanticipated games of the season, Scarlets head coach Pivac is understandably wary of the threat of their nearest and dearest, even if his side will go into the match as overwhelming favourites.

“We are not going to look at the Ospreys’ season to date and say this game is going to be an easy game because it never is,” he said.

“At the Liberty last year they beat us and beat us comfortably, we didn’t score a try, that is the game we will be focusing on, not what we did out here last year or where the Ospreys are on the points table.

“If we do that we will come up short.

“At the moment our errors are keeping teams in games.

“The Ospreys have some class players, they will be smarting and if we give them turnovers like we did against Connacht they will punish us as well.

“The Ospreys have to use this game to try and turn things around.

“We were no wins from three last season and we were lucky enough to turn it around it last year.

“That is what we will be reminding our players of. “If we can do it, they can do it.” The Scarlets will this week assess forwards Rob Evans and Will Boyde — who both came off after bangs to the head against Connacht — along with Samson Lee, John Barclay and Gareth Davies, who sat out the game after picking up knocks in the previous week’s victory over Edinburgh.