Advertisement
Davies (32')
Tries
Mata (2', 17'), Rees-Zammit (54')
Costelow (33')
Conversions
Worsley (3')
Costelow (23', 49', 52')
Penalties
The Scarlets flew the flag for Welsh rugby in the Champions Cup last weekend and came up just short in a game that was there to be won. When they sit down and review the footage on Monday they will be full of regrets.
Head coach Dwayne Peel said he genuinely believes his side are headed in the right direction and to be fair to him, there were signs of that: the multi-phase attack looked (at times) the best it has in 2 years and the set piece was mostly on the front foot. The physicality was notably better and the back 3 were all excellent.
However, Peel must also look in the mirror having snookered himself with the selection and deployment of the subs bench. Scarlets lined up with 2 inside centres in the XV: Johnny Williams at 12 (who has player at 13 plenty of times) and Eddie James at 13, who has never started there before.
He then loaded his bench with 2 more centres: Joe Hawkins who can play 10 or 12 and Joe Roberts who is a specialist 13 but can play wing if needed. Having 4 centres in the 23 was immediately identified by fans as an odd decision and it proved totally ineffective on the night.
Eddie James played well enough at 13, but a player of his talent needs to be touching the ball as much as possible and he was more effective once he moved to 12 later in the game. Inside him, Johnny Williams was quiet whilst Joe Roberts didn’t bring much impact off the bench either.
But most egregious was taking off fly-half Sam Costelow – who was the conduit for everything good the Scarlets did in this game – on 62 minutes and replacing him with Joe Hawkins.
Costelow himself was baffled at the decision and did not hide his displeasure, which was echoed by the fans. Hawkins is a talented player but still learning the ropes as a 10 and he was nowhere near Costelow’s level once he came on.
Elsewhere, replacement flanker Jarrod Taylor went unused whilst 3 other subs didn’t come on until well after the 70th minute. By that time, the Scarlets set piece had begun to creak as the starting players tired and any momentum they had built up was completely lost. Bench use has long been a blind sport for the Scarlets and this game was just the latest example of a lack of a clear strategy in that department.
There were some good performances, notably captain Josh MacLeod who had 2 excellent turnovers, loosened Kemsley Mathias who played 70 minutes and had the Bristol tightwad in serious trouble, and wing Tom Rogers and Ellis Mee comprehensively outshone Wales teammate Louis Rees-Zammit.
It was the other Bristol winger though, Fiji’s Kalaveti Ravouvou, who was the difference between the two sides. His magical try assist for fellow Fijian Bill Mata was the highlight of an otherwise drab game of rugby.
In total this match lasted 2 hours and 4 minutes. A lot of the 34 minutes of dead time was taken up by a lengthy injury delay for Scarlets prop Archer Holtz, but most of it was infuriating TMO interventions that were late to be called in and slow to be processed. They were basic decisions that were taking minutes at a time to adjudicate, and it completely killed the game as a spectacle.
Much was made on social media of the number of empty seats at Parc Y Scarlets, some said it was a poor showing from the home fans whilst others used it as evidence of the damage the WRU has done in driving fans away. The uncertainty over the region’s future and the thrashings the national team is taking certainly don’t help.
The official attendance was just under 7,400 – which is about average for the Scarlets and considerably more than some of their regional rivals get. Either way, the pictures of empty seats once again proved that Anglo-Welsh fixtures are not the cure all that some claim they are, not that the argument was ever evidence based to start with.
In all, everyone came away from this game grumpy. The Scarlets lost to a Bristol side who played badly and they only have themselves to blame.
