SCARLETS: ‘Far more of a challenge now’: Davies wary of improving Dragons in Newport

Nigel Davies has warned that the Dragons are a much tougher proposition than they once were, as the Scarlets head to Rodney Parade on Saturday (3pm) seeking their first win of the United Rugby Championship season.

The director of rugby has made five changes for the trip, with Sam Costelow back at fly-half after a head knock, Kemsley Mathias and Harri O’Connor in an all-Wales front row, and Gareth Anscombe left out of the 23.

The regions meet in the second Welsh derby in as many weeks for Davies’ side, beaten 21-15 by Cardiff, with the Dragons having drawn 19-19 with Benetton in their own opener.

“Certainly over the last 24 months, we’ve seen progress there,” Davies said. “They’re playing a very expansive game now as well, and they’ve got a pack of forwards that can compete. They’re far more of a challenge now than they’ve been.

“They would have probably been a little bit disappointed in the end with the result they had on Saturday, given their second-half performance. I think they’ll be quite pleased with where they are and they’ll be looking forward to us coming up there, no doubt.”

‘Every single point is really important’

Davies was clear that a second defeat is not something the Scarlets can afford to shrug off as early-season adjustment.

“It’s game two of the URC, it’s a long season, and like in any organisation you’ve got to have a plan in place. Then when that plan is challenged, you’re able to react and adjust. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing this week,” he said.

“The URC is a long, long season. Every game is important and every single point you can get in this competition is really important. It doesn’t change, every game is equally important, and we’ve got ambitions. To achieve those ambitions, we need to be winning.”

Looking after the ball

The work this week has focused on the failings that cost the Scarlets against Cardiff, where five turnovers in contact handed the visitors the platform for three line-out tries.

“We’ve pressurised some of the thought process and some of the skill work. In terms of our overall model and what we want to do, we’re not changing that because we know it works. We’re just going to deliver it better and be more consistent,” Davies said.

“The way we looked after the ball in the contact I was disappointed with. We lost the ball five times, which just took away our opportunity and gave the opportunity back to Cardiff, and you just can’t do that at this level.

“We’ve done a bit more work on that. It’s not that we haven’t worked on it, it’s just that in that particular game it became a big issue.”

He wants the lesson to land wider than the training field.

“It’s just making players aware of the importance of every moment in the game. Every moment, every action matters and has got an effect. So that’s a responsibility,” he said.

Davies also identified where his side were at their best before the game turned.

“We’re playing at our best when we’re controlling the tempo, controlling the ball, playing in the right areas and getting enough ball,” he said. “In the second half we struggled to get ball. When we did get ball, we struggled to hold on to it and dictate the game at our pace. Cardiff were allowed to dictate a lot of that game.”

Derbies under a cloud

The fixture comes with the WRU’s plan to cut the professional game to three teams hanging over Welsh rugby, a subject Davies is determined not to let into the dressing room.

“I think that is definitely out there, and people are aware of it that way,” he said.

“From our point of view, we’re just 100% focused on ourselves and getting ourselves right. We can’t be sidelined by that too much, because otherwise it will take away our focus from what we really need to be working on. We’re about getting our performances right, getting our game right, and then the rest will look after itself.”

Asked about the region’s targets for the season, he kept his counsel.

“Internally we’ve got clear goals in terms of what we’re going to achieve, and from that has come everything that we’ve done,” he said. “Our standards that we’ve set internally and externally, the KPIs we’ve set for team performance and individual performance, that’s driven everything we’re doing.

“We’ve got clear goals. We need to do our talking on the field, not off the field.”