PEEL ALWAYS HAD BELIEF
SCARLETS coach Dwayne Peel said he was confident his side’s late pressure would pay off as a last-gasp try from replacement hooker Eddie Swart sealed the Scarlets’ first win since December.
It capped a dramatic final few minutes that saw one match-winning try chalked off, before Swart’s heroics ended a run of eight defeats in all competitions.
The Scarlets’ last win in any competition came against Cardiff at the Arms Park in early December, with their last victory at Parc y Scarlets also against the Blue and Blacks in November.
That run of form has left them sitting towards the bottom of the United Rugby Championship and you feared that, despite being the better team in Llanelli, they’d fail to turn that into a win once again.
After the game Peel told the BBC: “I always felt confident we would get the try because we were putting a lot of pressure on, but as the time goes on you think we have probably lost our last chance.
“Our maul probably hasn’t been the best this year five metres out, but we got the job done in the end. I think it was deserved because as the game went on, I thought we applied a lot of pressure.
“It was really important that we got that win and we’ll try to build some momentum going into next week.”
At times, the Scarlets were their own worst enemy – adding to their misery with a series of unforced errors.
Confidence, understandably, seems low down west and that showed with a scrappy and sloppy first-half performance. Offloads were forced and passes were read comfortably by the Italian defence.
All too often, the frustration told as they put themselves under pressure with some loose handling or questionable decision-making.
Sam Costelow, back in the Scarlets fly-half jersey after a first Six Nations campaign with Wales, opened the scoring from the tee after two minutes. However, the boot of Jacob Umaga drew the Italians level two minutes later.
Then, after 11 minutes, Costelow’s competitor for the Welsh 10 jersey, Ioan Lloyd, was no match for the power of Onisi Ratave. The Fijian wing powered through the Scarlets full-back on his way to the whitewash – crossing for the only try of the first half.
The boot of Umaga extended Benetton’s lead to 10 points before the break.
Two penalties from Costelow early in the first-half brought Dwayne Peel’s side to within four points, but try as they might, it looked like they’d fall desperately short.
Despite impressive moments from Lloyd and scrum-half replacement Kieran Hardy, the Scarlets struggled to piece anything of note together in order to snatch victory.
That looked to be the case right up until the dying seconds, when a halfbreak from Hardy put Steff Evans into some space.
The replacement wing just about got over the line, only for the ball to be held up when the Scarlets thought they’d won it at the death.
Despite Malakai Fekitoa’s heroics to hold up Evans, the Scarlets would have one more chance.
Piling everyone into a maul, Swart proved the hero as the Llanelli side powered over into the corner long after the clock had gone red.
After a lengthy TMO check, the score was awarded – with Costelow slotting a conversion out wide that will only serve to boost his confidence – and the Scarlets’ wait for a victory came to an end.