Williams returns to the squad having completed a six-week ban after being dismissed in the Challenge Cup defeat against Clermont Auvergne for dangerous play back in the beginning of January.
The Scarlets, like the rest of the Welsh regions, come into round 11 of fixtures with a depleted squad, with Peel revealing that he has the bare minimum to take to Galway to try and end a run of seven defeats on the trot in all competitions.
The match against the team lying in tenth place in the standings will come too soon for winger Tom Rogers and flanker Taine Plumbtree. Both of the Wales duo, however, have returned to training and will be in contention for the home clash against Benetton in just over three weeks time.
The Scarlets boss added he was disappointed that Wales had not released any of his players in the fallow week of Six Nations action but is focused on using the opportunity to continue some of the younger players development.
“We are ok, from our perspective there is no one really making a return from injury this week, but Johnny Williams is back from suspension, it is good to have him back in the mix.
“Having someone like Sam Lousi back too is great because he has a bit of experience.
“Tom Rogers and Taine Plumbtree have started to integrate back into training [but are not available for Connacht].
“That is great news for us. Tom has been a bit shorter than Taine, but having Taine out there is big for us as he was a big signing for us in the summer and we haven’t seen much of him.
“It is always a good place to play rugby. They [Connacht] are a very passionate and physical team.
“It will be important for us to have that field position and not allow them to get on top. We have to play.
“We know they will be physical and will come out of the blocks, so we need to stay in that battle. We have worked hard at that over the last couple of weeks [in training], so we will see how we go.
“Wales have felt that they have wanted to keep players together to train. I’m disappointed because I want those players back.
“We are missing nine guys, and we have four or five injuries on top of that to key players. That is a loss in anyone’s book.
“We saw Joe [Roberts] play last week when he came back for the Munster game, as did Kemsley [Mathias].
“We can’t do much about it though because they are in control of that. For ourselves, it’s about concentrating on what we’ve got.
There was though good news provided with news of the signing of South African hooker Marnus van der Meuwe for next season, with Peel confident more are likely to come in the coming weeks along with the renewal of several current personnel to new deals.
“There are a number of areas we will look at over the course of the next couple of months and remainder of the season.
“From my perspective, there is a lot of learning to be had from this season.
“You look back to the start of the season and how it was managed and would you do things differently in the scenario again. There are always areas you can improve.
“It has been a challenging year undoubtedly and frustrating at times. For me you have to look at the bigger picture and where we want to go [long-term] with this club.
“There is obviously frustration around fans, but we are going through a period of transition and have to deal with some pain.
“We know where we want to go. We want to be competitive, but there are going to be ebbs and flows and highs and lows.
“There will be more recruits and retention. We are working hard on that at the minute, and we will announce when we are ready more players that will come into the group.
“We know the challenges around budgets so we will do the best we can.
“There are still eight games to go this season, so there is a lot of rugby to be played and we will strive hard.
“The guys who are here having been training hard. For us it is what it is, we move on, and we make the selections accordingly. It gives the young boys the opportunity to step into the slots.
“It’s about looking to the future now and it’s my job to bleed these guys so we can be competitive in the URC moving forward.
“If we want to be competitive, we need to have good players here, but we need to be producing them ourselves as well and we are starting to see that.
“We will crack on this week and are looking forward to the challenge in Galway.”
[Lead image: Scarlets Rugby]
