SCARLETS: ‘It is humbling’: Davies reflects on second-half collapse at Llandovery

Nigel Davies admitted the 80-14 defeat to the Dragons at Llandovery was a humbling experience for his young Scarlets side, after an encouraging opening half gave way to a second-half collapse.

Missing a host of first-choice regulars, the Scarlets were competitive before the break at Church Bank but conceded 61 unanswered points after the restart against a near full-strength Dragons in their final run-out before the season.

“We were competitive in the first half, played some nice stuff at times, which will give us encouragement,” said Davies.

“We made some changes at half-time, and thereafter we couldn’t take anything out of the second half other than the fact we capitulated.”

‘There were no league points on the line’

Davies was clear about the purpose of the exercise, even as the scoreline mounted.

“It is a pre-season game, that is what they are there for. We were more than competitive in that first half against a pretty much full-strength Dragons team,” he said.

“We wanted to test the depth of the squad, and even though we did that, we are much better than that performance. It is humbling, but there were no league points on the line out there.”

The director of rugby pointed to specific work-ons, chief among them the set piece and discipline.

“There are a lot of learnings for our young boys. There are areas of our game where we need to get a lot stronger,” he said.

“There were a number of driven lineout tries for the Dragons, and we gave three away against Exeter as well, but that comes off the back of penalties, and our penalty count was too high. All those things are part of the learning of the relatively young team we put out.”

A stronger side promised for Cardiff

Davies noted the Dragons had gone full-strength for their own final warm-up, and promised more experience when it counts.

“It was the Dragons’ final hit-out of pre-season, and they went big with their selection. I expected more from us, particularly in that second half, but we didn’t see it,” he said.

“We will have a lot more experience in our team next week.”

The Scarlets open their United Rugby Championship campaign at home to Cardiff on Saturday 26 September.

Author

Richard Bond

Swansea-based sports journalist.
Twitter: @RichBond00
Email: RichardBond@swanseabaynews.com