DELANEY DELIGHT AT SCARLETS GRIT
GLENN Delaney praised the grit of his Scarlets side after they came through a tough battle to see off the Dragons.
For the second successive week the West Wales region claimed a bonus-point win, but the outcome of this clash at Rodney Parade was in the balance for long periods until the visitors pulled away in the final quarter.
It ultimately mattered little in Guinness PRO14 terms as Munster denied the Scarlets a semi-final spot by beating Connacht yesterday.
But Scarlets head coach Delaney said: “The pleasing thing is that it was a tight game, the Dragons exposed us on the edge a couple of times, we got heavily tested and got ourselves into an arm wrestle.
“We needed to find solutions to ride through it and we did that and I was proud of the players for having those conversations on how to solve those problems.
“They are learning all the time. I thought we played some real mature rugby when the game was in the balance.
“We had the foundations to play off. The work Richard Kelly has done with our line-out and drive and Ben Franks with our scrum.
“The Dragons countered that in the second half with the stand-off defence and we had to solve that problem, which we did.
“As a team we will always play and give the ball air. If the foundations are right you can play that type of game.”
The Scarlets had a crushing advantage in the scrums, where Samson Lee and Wyn Jones predictably held the upper hand against young Dragons props Josh Reynolds and Chris Coleman.
And they had a hind with fly-half standing.
Tries arrived for the visitors through Lee, Steff Evans, James Davies, Johnny McNicholl, Tom Rogers and Dane Blacker, with man-ofthe-match Jones supplying 11 points with the boot.
The Dragons had gutsy competitors in Aaron Wainwright and Taine Basham and gave it a go with their touchdowns coming through Jared Rosser, Basham and Adam Warren.
A key point arrived in the second half when the hosts were denied a score through Rosser after Basham was adjudged to have been offside at the other end of the pitch.
To rub salt in, Jones kicked the resultant penalty.
What could have been a four-point deficit for the Dragons to have a crack at closing ended up being a 14-point gap the hosts were never going to cutting edge beDan Jones outbridge.
Dean Ryan says his young guns will be better after their derby loss.
The Dragons’ director of rugby made 10 changes for the game but maintained it was the kind of experience his players needed.
“We got what we knew said Ryan.
“I was pleased that we were in it up to 50 minutes because we had eight under-23s.
“That we got dusted in the scrum and drive wasn’t a surprise because we wanted people to experience that.
“The only way that they will get better is by playing at this level and understanding it, rather than waiting to experience it.
“I was pleased that we were in contention, looked quite comfortable with the ball and caused them some problems.
“But I am not scratching my head, I haven’t got a magic wand and I can’t make a 21-year-old suddenly compete with Ken Owens.”
It was a landmark day for Owens as he made his 250th appearance for the Scarlets. we’d get,”