In what has become already a mammoth task to progress from Pool 3, it is now back-to-back defeats for Peel’s side after losing in France to Castres last weekend.
Maximum bonus points wins against Clement Auvergne in France and Edinburgh back in Llanelli in January will now be required to stand any chance of reaching the last-16 in Europe this year.
It had all started brightly for the West-Walians when fly-half Ioan Lloyd burst from his own half to set up Tongan flanker Vaea Fifita to give the home side the lead in just the fifth minute of the match.
Despite seeing the visitors reduced to 14 men temporality with flanker Sandro Mamamtavrishvili sent to the bin for an off-the-ball challenge. The Llanelli-based side would struggle to take advantage of the extra man often poor with ball in hand.
Back to full capacity, Black Lion would turn the game on its head as their opponents became error-strewn. Powered by a dominant scrum the Georgians would add 23 unanswered points to condemn the Scarlets to their seventh defeat in nine games this season.
Wing Mirian Modebadze and hooker Beka Mamrikashvili scoring either side of the break, whilst fly-half Luka Matkava would add 13 points with the boot as the Scarlets scrum would falter against the Georgian’s physicality.
“I thought we were poor, to be honest, in certain elements of the game,” said Peel.
“It is a sobering night for us, we are bitterly disappointed in the changing room. There are some hard lessons to be learned from that game and we need to get better from that performance.
“Our speed and reaction into the breakdown wasn’t good enough, especially in that second-half when we had them under pressure.
“That’s something as a coach that you keep hammering every week. It’s disappointing from that perspective.
“Some of that was due to our poor attack as well, I don’t think we attacked very well. We were a bit lateral as we knew they had numbers on their feet.
“They were physical in that area, but we still need to challenge them going forward.
“We overplayed a bit in that first-half. It was a difficult night with the rain coming in just before the game.
“I think from a set-piece perspective, our line-out was better than it was last week, but we were taught a lesson at scrum-time and got penalised at almost every one on their ball.
“It has been a tough start to the season, but we have an opportunity over the next ten days with the biggest game of the season at home [against the Ospreys].
“We need to train now this week, get our game plan in order and make sure we execute that and turn up on Boxing Day.”
[Lead image: Scarlets Rugby]
