Scarlets face uphill battle after Tigers’ power play
THE Scarlets were undone by a dose of old-fashioned Leicester power that left their Champions Cup campaign hanging by a thread at Welford Road.
At the heart of it was centre Manu Tuilagi, so blighted by numerous injuries in recent years, with the England and Lions man grabbing a critical try to swing the game the home side’s way going into the final quarter, just as they appeared to be floundering.
When the Scarlets put themselves two points ahead at 27-25 going into the final 20, and in a sumptuous position to go on and claim victory, along came Tuilagi to drive a stake through their plans.
In the 65th minute the England and Lions centre bulldozed over for Leicester’s bonus-point fourth score which, with fly-half George Ford’s conversion, established a five-point cushion.
More Tuilagi rampaging soon forced a penalty out of the Scarlets’ defence, and when Ford sent it over it meant a two-score deficit. From there it was a real uphill task even for a side of the Scarlets’ game-breaking tendencies.
And ultimately they had no answer to Leicester’s brute force. A fifth try from England wing Jonny May and more points from Ford meant that, by the final whistle, it all looked a lot more one-sided than in truth it had been.
With just one point on the board from their opening two matches, Wayne Pivac’s side now have a mammoth task to repeat their feat of last season and reach the knockout stage of Europe’s elite tournament.
Having been resoundingly beaten 24-10 by Ulster in Belfast a week earlier, the Tigers were under pressure to produce a response as they took to the turf in front of their own fans – and respond they did in the opening 10 minutes.
The Scarlets were forced to withstand something of an onslaught as the big Leicester ball-carriers made impressive yardage, forcing the visitors’ defensive operation into overdrive.
Ford – captain in place of hooker Tom Youngs, who withdrew before kick-off through illness – sent over a penalty from 45 metres in just the second minute. And the English side increased their lead soon afterwards when second row Harry Wells barrelled his way over the line underneath the posts following multiple phases by the home forward pack.
But Wells’ score woke the Scarlets, and for the rest of the first half they had the better of things.
By the half-hour mark they were level at 10-10 thanks to a beauty of a try from scrum-half Gareth Davies, and five points from the ever-reliable boot of Leigh Halfpenny.
Davies rounded off a classic flowing Scarlets attack in the 15th minute when he took an inside pass off second row David Bulbring after Halfpenny had begun a counterattack by fielding a Ford chip and spearing through the Leicester defence. Pivac’s boys looked like ending the half in the ascendancy until more outstanding muscularity on the gain-line from the Leicester forwards created an overlap for flanker Guy Thompon, who slid over in the left wing corner for the home side’s second try four minutes from the interval.
It looked to be scant reward for the Scarlets’ overall first period superiority, but Halfpenny had the last word of the opening 40 minutes with a 41-metre penalty after England tighthead Dan Cole had stupidly shoulder-charged him in midfield.
The Lions full-back’s accuracy meant the match was tantalisingly poised at 15-13 at the interval, but whatever Leicester talked about in the dressing room, they appeared to have hit upon something by the way they tore into the restart.
One worrying area for the Scarlets was the scrum and when Cole, not for the first time, got the better of Wyn Jones at the set-piece two minutes into the second half the Tigers were further ahead thanks to a second Ford penalty.
Scarlets loosehead Jones began to have a torrid time at the hands of Cole and was lectured at length by referee Roman Poite when the scrum went down again moments later.
From that infringement Ford went to touch for territory and it wasn’t long before more pressure led to Tongan No.8 Sione Kalamafoni crashing over for a third try that the fly-half improved for a 25-13 advantage.
Yet even then you sensed the Scarlets weren’t done by a long chalk.
And another almost immediate momentum shift duly materialised when scrum-half Davies combined with Steff Evans to send the wing over for an opportunist score from close range.
It got better just before the hour when Leicester got themselves into all sorts of confusion trying to run the ball away from their own tryline.
A poor attempted clearance from scrum-half Ben Youngs failed to find touch and seconds later his opposite number Davies was careering into the red zone and passing to flanker Blade Thomson to finish for the try.
Leigh Halfpenny’s conversion put the Scarlets in front, but from there on it was all downhill.