Scarlets eventually exploit Dragons front row shortage

WAYNE PIVAC slammed the refereeing of the scrum despite his side’s victory over the Dragons which lifted the Scarlets back into the PRO14 play-off places.

Tries from Ioan Nicholas and Sam Hidalgo-Clyne plus 12 points from the boot of Dan Jones gave the hosts their first win in six games.

All the Dragons could muster was a late try from James Benjamin with Josh Lewis and Jason Tovey kicking eight points.

But Pivac was unhappy more penalties did not go the Scarlets way in the first half. He said: “It was apparent that there was a lot going on at the scrum and I felt 100 per cent those penalties should have gone our way.

“Clearly we had the dominant scrum. It’s tough because we had three very young officials and they’re doing the best they can.

“It made it a stop start affair which made it hard to get going and score tries. It kept the Dragons in the game and from our point of view was disappointing.”

Pivac’s side came out of the blocks firing with their scrum allowing Jones to give them a six-point lead from the tee. Former Wales U20 scrum-half Kieran Hardy was outstanding on his first PRO14 start as he raced 60m after a quickly taken restart from Jones.

Hardy was eventually brought down and the move came to an abrupt end with the hosts coughing up the ball in a promising position.

Rob Evans thought he had claimed the game’s first try but his score was disallowed by the TMO with replays showing Zane Kirchner’s hand underneath the ball.

Scarlets’ front row dominance finally told with Dan

Suter sent to the sin bin for repeatedly infringing at the scrum. Jones rubbed salt into the Dragons’ wounds with another penalty for a 12-3 half-time lead.

Lewis claimed the first points of the second-half for the Dragons with a penalty before the Scarlets gained the upper hand and finally broke the deadlock.

Australian centre Asquith charged on to a pass from Hardy before offloading off the floor to McNicholl and the Kiwi flyer then drew his man to put Nicholas over at the right-hand corner for the game’s opening try.

Pivac’s side squeezed the life out of their visitors for the remainder of the match with their driving lineout particularly effective. After putting the Dragons under a large amount of pressure replacement hooker Marc Jones smashed over the line only to be held up.

But the Scarlets contin- ued to push forward with Hidalgo-Clyne sealing the win with a try from a quickly tapped penalty.

Benjamin grabbed a consolation try for the visitors after a well-worked move which began with a break from Adam Warren.

“We have a lot of injuries in the front row and we couldn’t quite get the platform that we needed to get a win,” said Dragons skills coach Barry Maddocks.

“Fair play to the Scarlets, they strangled us in the scrums and lineouts. They had a strong front row and we were down to our fourth choice props.”