PIVAC’S UNDER FIRE AS PROUD EURO RECORD IS THREATENED
IT isn’t definitely over for the Scarlets, but there are super-optimists out there who might be starting to doubt whether the region will make the Guinness PRO14 play-offs and/or secure Heineken Cup qualification.
Saturday evening’s 20-12 home loss to Conference B rivals Edinburgh has left Wayne Pivac’s side at real risk of coming up short on the two fronts.
Yet at half-time against Edinburgh they were 12-0 ahead, having bossed the opening 40 minutes, before a dramatic turnaround saw the visitors rattle up 20 unanswered points for a hugely significant win.
MARK ORDERS looks at the fallout...
A PROUD RECORD IN JEOPARDY
The Scarlets and their previous incarnation as Llanelli RFC have played in the top tier of European rugby in every season bar the first, when Cardiff, Pontypridd and Swansea represented Wales.
That’s 21 consecutive campaigns in a competition their supporters have come to relish.
But they are up against it to maintain that run.
They need to bank a maximum 10-point haul from their remaining games against Zebre and the Dragons, but even then the Scarlets would still be reliant on other results going their way.
Wayne Pivac will know that at this stage of the season the ideal position is to be in charge of your own destiny.
Sadly for the Scarlets that isn’t the case.
It all seems more than a bit improbable and leaves the Scarlets with the genuine prospect of missing out on Europe’s top table.
Given their two decades of dining amongst the elite, that would be a hard pill to swallow.
COACH UNDER FIRE, BUT IS IT FAIR?
Pivac had been hoping to end his stint at the Scarlets on a high before taking over with Wales, but the defeat by Edinburgh makes such a prospect increasingly unlikely.
Criticism hasn’t been slow to come in, with a number of social media users, of course, lining up to doubt his suitability for the Wales coaching job that he will take over after the World Cup.
There are never any guarantees with such matters and Warren Gatland is a hugely difficult act to follow, but Pivac built arguably the most attractive side regional rugby has produced, one that had the merit of securing silverware.
While the Scarlets were swaggering their way to the title in 2017, Wales were being assailed for being predictable.
Since then Gatland has fashioned a Grand Slam team out of the criticism while the Scarlets have fallen back, not helped by the loss of key players such as Liam Williams, Tadhg Beirne, Scott Williams and John Barclay and injuries that have placed the likes of Aaron Shingler, Jake Ball and Blade Thomson off limits.
Some signings haven’t worked out and there has been a loss of momentum.
Ball has been acutely missed at the centre of the pack and Shingler and Thomson would have been starting XV players.
Pivac has had problems elsewhere and his side’s lack of depth has been exposed.
He will be hugely disappointed at the way the campaign has turned out, and on Saturday evening he pointed to the decisions that went against the Scarlets, claiming referee George Clancy didn’t take on board all the calls he received from his assistant referees.
But the Scarlets weren’t at their best and, for all their promise behind the scrum, they were beaten up front, especially in the second half.
So what to make of the flak being aimed at the coach?
Well, the West Walians missing out on a European spot would hardly have been what Pivac would have wanted ahead of starting the national coaching job.
But he deserves to be at least permitted to start his tenure with Wales before being written off.
A difficult final season with the Scarlets doesn’t have to mean problems ahead for Wales.
It really doesn’t.
THE COCKERILL FACTOR
Richard Cockerill knows he will never sweep the board in every popularity contest.
He once told a story about how he had played for the Barbarians against a Scottish XV at Murrayfield. The Baa-baas featured an all-Leicester front row, with Jonah Lomu the star attraction behind.
Cockerill said: “Jonah did what he did, scored two early tries, and the stadium applauded.
“Then he made another line-break, palmed off a couple of Scottish guys, passed to me a few yards out and I touched down. The whole place booed! Walking back I said to (All Black) Craig Dowd: ‘Mate, they hate me up here’. He said: ‘Mate, everyone hates you everywhere’.”
Cockerill, then, isn’t a man who has rose petals thrown his way too often, but nor does he throw too many
around himself.
But he is a rugby coach who has won a lot of respect for his work at Edinburgh and on Saturday evening he managed to wrest a victory from the jaws of defeat.
His side were losing 12-0 after being outplayed by the Scarlets for much of the first half.
The hosts seemed more eager, more clinical and altogether more threatening, with Jonathan Davies, Johnny McNicholl and Leigh Halfpenny catching the eye.
But some old-school straight talking helped turn the situation around.
“There was a bit of shouting and encouragement at half-time over what we’re about, because that wasn’t Edinburgh Rugby before the break,” Cockerill said.
“That first half was pretty disgusting from us and that second half was the complete opposite. We had a few tough words as a group and the reaction to win that second half 20 to zip was excellent.”
But what did he say? Would he share his pep talk with us, or at least offer us a pre-watershed version?
“We just said it wasn’t good enough,” he continued. “We’d turned up, and then it seemed to be: ‘Scarlets are a good team, it’s gone a bit against us and so we’ll play like the game is already lost’.
“It’s not good enough and we aren’t going to accept it. If people don’t want to be in the battle they can’t go out in the second half.”
Helped by a few marginal decisions which didn’t please the Scarlets, Edinburgh took control, bossing the forward exchanges to the point where they enjoyed 64 percent possession and 68 percent territory after the interval. With their line-out working faultlessly, they piled up the points.
The Scarlets had no answers once Edinburgh raised their game. The need was for them to tighten their discipline and improve their ball retention, but they gave away 13 penalties all told and were turned over 14 times, with their line-out unreliable.
The result puts Edinburgh six points above the Scarlets in the race for the play-offs with each team having two games to go.