COONEY HAUL ENDS SCARLETS’ CHANCES
SCARLETS boss Dwayne Peel admitted his side were second best during Saturday’s defeat to Ulster in the United Rugby Championship.
Ireland scrum-half John Cooney scored 30 points to inspire a win for his side in a 12-try thriller.
“It was a helter-skelter game,” said head coach Peel.
“I think it was a huge effort. It was a game of high intensity and a lot of tries and we were six points down with five minutes to go.
“There are discipline areas we need to tidy up.
“We were second best in the fundamentals of the game which I am disappointed about and that’s what has ultimately won Ulster the game.”
Peel’s side managed to score five tries at Parc y Scarlets but they still finished a breathless match 16 points short of their Irish opponents.
While a first victory of the season had appeared achievable even late on, a strong finish by Ulster left the Scarlets with just a bonus point to accompany their defeat.
If the first half could be characterised by Ulster dominance briefly broken up by a spell of Scarlets renaissance, then the second 40 minutes resembled two heavyweights slugging it out, exchanging blows but rarely raising their guard.
Ulster imposed themselves with ease early on. The likes of Stuart Mccloskey and Luke Marshall ran superb angles, setting the platform for a lightning start.
Six minutes in, captain Alan O’connor forced his way over after strong work from their pack. Within 16 minutes they had a second.
It was a similar process as relentless carries around the corner presented a small gap for Martin Moore to burrow through.
But then the match turned on its head.
A turnover handed the Scarlets a rare moment of possession and they made the most of it.
Some smart hands and quick ball enabled them to put Jonathan Davies up against a front-row forward, with the Lions centre winning that minibattle to cross for their opening try.
No sooner had they scored than they had a second try. A break from deep by Sam Costelow set them up an attacking position.
Gareth Davies looked set to snipe away for a score, only to be stopped short.
But quick hands put Ryan Conbeer over in the corner to reduce the deficit to just two points.
The tide appeared to have turned completely minutes later as Costelow nailed a penalty to put the Scarlets ahead.
However, from there to the break it was largely all Ulster again.
Just after the half-hour mark, Costelow was sent to the sin-bin for the second week in a row after he took Aaron Sexton out in the air.
It didn’t take long for Ulster to capitalise against 14 men, with Michael Lowry breaking through the defence to put Cooney over. They wrapped up the bonus point after the clock had gone red, with the initial break for Marcus Rea’s score coming directly through the channel from where Costelow was absent.
Back to a full complement, the Scarlets started the second half strongly, with Vaea Fifita picking off Billy Burns’s pass to race away for an interception try from halfway.
The try-scorer then blotted his copybook by conceding a penalty that Cooney struck through the uprights. Ulster pushed further ahead as Burns forced his way over after more pressure.
A brace of tries for Daf Hughes from driving line-outs came either side of a controversial second score by man of the match Cooney, with a lengthy TMO deliberation appearing to shed no further light on whether a try was the correct decision or not.
Heading into the final 10 minutes, a Patchell penalty closed the gap to six points.
However, hopes of a Scarlets victory evaporated when Fifita was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate yellow card, allowing Cooney to kick Ulster out of touching distance.
Victory was sealed just before fulltime when Tom O’toole crashed over for Ulster’s seventh, and the day’s 12th, try.