Makeshift Scarlets almost cage Cheetahs
SCARLETS ran out of steam after a promising start as they were beaten by Cheetahs.
Wayne Pivac’s side suffered only their second league defeat of the season, despite tries in either half from James Davies and Ioan Nicholas.
Fly-half Dan Jones kicked a conversion and two penalties, but last season’s champions – who fielded a youthful side hit hard by Wales call-ups and injuries – went down to defeat.
Tom Prydie’s late penalty did at least ensure a losing bonus point, but centre William SmallSmith scored for Cheetahs and wing Craig Barry added a brace as the South African side continued their impressive start to life in Conference A.
Pivac said: “We are pretty pleased with the outcome. It’s about winning the war at the end of the season and not every single battle. We’ve got six points from our two games on this mini-tour and are really happy with that as a coaching group.
“We were missing a lot of our internationals but we got some good results against the odds.”
Veteran scrum-half Mike Phillips started this game for the Scarlets and Jones opened the scoring. The Cheetahs then went close to an opening try, only for Johnny McNicholl to pull off a superb try-saving tackle.
But the hosts soon struck, Rynier Bernardo putting boot to ball for Williams Small-Smith to win the race to the ball.
On the same week he signed a new Scarlets deal, Davies hit back on his first start since recovering from a shoulder injury. Tadhg Beirne and Ryan Elias played prominent roles before the all-action flanker dived over, leaving Scarlets 16-11 adrift at the break.
Enterprising Cheetahs have been an excellent PRO14 addition and they had what would have been a second try ruled out for a forward pass.
But they took control when Barry went over after a surging 40-metre run. The see-saw nature of the game continued as Nicholas responded with his own 35-metre effort.
Jones converted, but although Barry’s second in the corner sealed victory for the home side, the Scarlets managed to claim something for their endeavours with Prydie’s late penalty.