Director of rugby Nigel Davies admitted the second-half hammering at the hands of the Dragons at Llandovery’s Church Bank was a humbling experience for his young Scarlets side following an encouraging opening 40 minutes.
Missing a host of first-choice regulars, the West Walians led 14-12 in the final minute of the opening period, but conceded a try on the stroke of half-time and after making wholesale changes fell apart after the restart, conceding 61 unanswered points to lose 80-14 to a confident Dragons outfit fully loaded in their final run out before the start of the URC.
“We were competitive in the first half, played some nice stuff at times which will give us encouragement,” said Davies, speaking to the media after the match. “We made some changes at half-time and thereafter we couldn’t take anything out of the second half other than the fact we capitulated.
“It is a pre-season game, that is what they are there for. As I said, we were more than competitive in that first half against a pretty much full strength Dragons team. We wanted to test the depth of the squad and even though we did that, we are much better than that performance.
“It is humbling, but there were no league points on the line out there.
“There are a lot of learnings for our young boys, there are areas of our game where we need to get a lot stronger at; there were a number of driven line-out tries for the Dragons and we gave three away against Exeter as well, but that comes off the back of penalties and our penalty count was too high.
“All those things are part of the learning of the relatively young team we put out.”
Looking forward to next week’s final pre-season outing against Saracens at Parc y Scarlets, Davies added: “It was the Dragons’ final hit-out of pre-season and they went big with their selection. I expected more from us, particularly in that second half, but we didn’t see it. We will have a lot more experience in our team next week.”
It was the Dragons who started brightly, forcing the home side to soak up plenty of early pressure before opening the scoring on seven minutes through centre Fine Inisi.
But back came the Scarlets, crafting a well-worked score for wing Ioan Jones courtesy of a lovely miss pass from fly-half Gareth Anscombe, playing his first game in Scarlets colours.
The Wales international added his first points from the touchline to level matters as the home team grew into the contest, with the likes of Sam O’Connor, George Roberts and Tristan Davies prominent up front and skipper Archie Hughes a livewire at nine.
After withstanding another Dragons assault, the Scarlets grabbed their second try of the night when, on 25 minutes, loose-head O’Connor burst onto a pass and showed good strength to cross. Anscombe’s conversion made it 14-7.
However, that was as good as it got for the Scarlets. The Dragons finished the half the stronger with scores from replacement Seb Davies and No. 8 Harrison Keddie making it 19-14 at the break.
The Scarlets made a number of changes at the interval, mainly up front, and after conceding a try from the restart, they were unable to stem the avalanche of tries that followed – nine in all to a rampant Dragons outfit. Wales international hooker Elliot Dee touched down from the back of two driving line-outs and Evan Minto, Tinus de Beer, Rhodri Williams, Harry Rees-Weldon, Sam Scarfe, David Richards and Joe Westwood all helped themselves to scores.
Scarlets – tries: I. Jones, S. O’Connor. Cons: G. Anscombe (2)
Dragons – tries: F. Inisi, S. Davies, H. Keddie, E. Dee (2), E. Minto, T. de Beer, R. Williams, H. Rees-Weldon, S. Scarfe, D. Richards, J. Westwood. Cons: C. Evans (2). De Beer (2), J. Lloyd (6).
Isaac Murray-Macgregor; Ioan Jones, Jac Davies, Gabe McDonald, Iori Badham (repl Callum Woolley 50); Gareth Anscombe (repl Ioan Nicholas 50), Archie Hughes (repl George Macdonald 55; repl Hughes 64); Sam O’Connor (repl Corey Domachowski HT; repl Josh Morse 60), George Roberts (repl Harry Thomas 60), Harri O’Connor (repl Gabe Hawley HT), Gabe Cahsay (repl Will Evans HT), Jac Price (repl Harvey Cuckson HT), Tristan Davies (repl Osian Williams 50), Dan Davis (repl Tiaan Sparrow 21; repl Joe Denman 64), Osian Williams (repl Dom Kossuth HT).
Referee: Craig Evans (WRU)