Scarlets looking to land knockout blow in Italy
THE Scarlets continue their Champions Cup salvage mission in Treviso this afternoon with skipper Ken Owens admitting: “It’s knockout rugby from now on”.
The Guinness PRO champions came perilously close to a disastrous early exit in Llanelli last weekend, needing two late tries to scrape home 33-28 against a vastly-improved Benetton side.
Preparations for today’s lunchtime clash haven’t been ideal with the Scarlets’ scheduled flight from Bristol to Venice cancelled because of an Italian air-traffic controllers strike.
The squad had to reroute to Cardiff for an alternative flight and landed in Treviso late last night.
Pivac and his players will now hope their European ambitions don’t get grounded at the Stadio Monigo.
They currently sit in third spot in Pool 5 on seven points, two behind Bath and five drift of Toulon.
Realistically, anything but a win this weekend and they are out. However, another victory over the Italians would keep them firmly in the hunt for quarter-final qualification with Bath at The Rec and Toulon at Parc y Scarlets to come in the new year.
“It’s knockout rugby for us, we have to keep winning,” said Owens.
“It is going to be tough, Benetton are going to be upset at how it finished last weekend and they will be confident they can turn us over.
“I didn’t think we got a lot of things right last weekend, after starting well.
“Thankfully, the character of the squad and the quality we have got shone through and we got the five points we needed.
“We have to get better and I am pretty sure we can do that.”
Pivac has made four changes to the Scarlets’ line-up with centre Scott Williams one of those returning to the side.
Williams has recovered from a couple of knocks he picked up during Wales’ autumn campaign and replaces fellow Wales international Hadleigh Parkes in midfield.
Fly-half Rhys Patchell is undergoing a head injury assessment so Dan Jones slots into the fly-half jersey; Rob Evans comes in for fellow international Wyn Jones at loose-head prop, while Will Boyde is named at No. 8 with Scotland skipper John Barclay dropping to the bench.
Pivac has made it clear he wants significant improvements from his side, admitting they played a get-outof-jail card in Llanelli.
Despite being reduced to 14 men following the dismissal of flanker Francesco Minto for a dangerous tackle on 24 minutes, the Italians dominated the contest, bossing territory and possession.
The Scarlets again showed they possess the attacking firepower to cause any side problems — their challenge will be to halt the direct Benetton runners on the gainline, something they failed to do last weekend.
“We will take any sort of win, but we have to make sure we are better defensively than we were last weekend,” said the New Zealander.
“That is about attitude as much as applying ourselves with our technique.
“We weren’t winning the collisions and it meant we were on the back foot and went long periods without the ball.
“It is something we have talked about this week.
“We are in control of our destiny in this pool and if we are good enough to get three wins from our last three games then we are in with a real good shout of qualifying,” added the Scarlets’ coach.
“That is our aim and if we can improve on our performance, hopefully we will still be alive.” SCARLETS: L. Halfpenny; J. McNicholl, P. Asquith, S. Williams, S. Evans; D. Jones, G. Davies; R. Evans, K. Owens (capt), W. Kruger, S. Cummins, D. Bulbring, T. Beirne, W. Boyde, James Davies. Reps: R. Elias, W. Jones, S. Gardiner, J. Barclay, J. Macleod, A. Davies, H. Parkes, S. Hughes. BENETTON: J. Hayward; A. Esposito, T. Benvenuti, L. Morisi, M. Ioane; T. Allan, T. Tebaldi; F. Zani, L. Bigi, T. Pasquali, A. Zanni, D. Budd (capt), S. Negri, N. Manu, B. Steyn. Reps: T. Baravalle, N. Quaglio, C. Traore, F. Ruzza, M. Barbini, E. Gori, I. McKinley, N. Brex. Referee: Romain Poite (Fra).