Wayne Pivac and Rhys Patchell, two key figures in Scarlets’ 2016-17 memorable title-winning campaign, return to Parc y Scarlets on Saturday in the colours of Benetton Rugby.
This season, the club will be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of that incredible day in Dublin, when Pivac was head coach and Patchell steered the ship superbly from 10.
These days, the New Zealander is in his first season at the helm in Treviso, while Patch has been brought on board as an assistant coach.
As for those in the Scarlets ranks, there still remain members of that ‘16-17 squad – Gareth Davies, Josh Macleod, Ryan Elias and Ioan Nicholas in the playing group and Emyr Phillips, Steff Hughes and James ‘Cubby Boi’ Davies, who are now part of the Scarlets back-room team.
In the build-up to this weekend’s round three BKT United Rugby Championship clash, Cubby sat down for a chat to BBC’s Scrum V podcast, taking a trip back to the Pivac era.
“It only feels like a few years ago,” said Davies. “There’s a few boys left here, but obviously a lot have moved on to other clubs and obviously new careers.
“Rugby’s a funny one because you’re best friends when you play together. I mean, none of the boys are probably the best at keeping in touch, we don’t send each other emails monthly or anything like that, but one thing I always find is that when we do reconnect, it’s so natural and you just become best friends again.
“Looking back, we built success on the pitch through a lot of the things that we did off the pitch. We were very close, we just connected as a group and I think it was important to enjoy your success and Pivac probably facilitated that more than anything.
“The way he put it together, it just worked. The environment Wayne created just allowed us to be ourselves.
“The beauty of team sport is that you have 40-odd players who have all got different backgrounds, different personalities. When you look at that squad you had a lot of personalities, but as a group, it just seemed to click as one.”
You can buy your tickets for the Pivac-Patchell reunion on Saturday as Scarlets take on Benetton in round three of the BKT URC HERE
To listen to the full Scrum V podcast at Parc y Scarlets, click the link HERE