Head coach Dwayne Peel says his Scarlets side are continuing to take strides forward, despite the disappointment of Saturday’s one-point Investec Champions Cup defeat to Bristol Bears.
The West Walians came agonisingly close to celebrating their return to the top-tier tournament with a victory after battling back from an early 12-0 deficit.
And afterwards Peel praised the effort of his players throughout.
“I’m gutted for everyone with that loss,” he said.
“It was a real scrap, a tight game and there was a lot of effort and endeavour from us.
“I just felt in the final quarter there were a couple of set-piece opportunities which we didn’t nail and a pretty soft try for them.
“It is fine margins, but that is the level of rugby we are playing at in this competition.”
Peel added: “There was a lot of good in our game, we had two tries disallowed, which was a real momentum swing, I thought the second try was really well-worked.
“We imprinted our game-plan well against a team who play free-scoring rugby and score a lot of points in their league. We made them work really hard for those points as they did us. As I said, it was a real scrap of a game, not a typical game you watch Bristol play.
“Are we taking steps forward? Definitely, and I’d hope the crowd went away thinking they saw their team in a massive fight – that is what I saw. It was a one-point match in the top tier of European rugby
“We have had a really good week in terms of excitement building into the match and when you put those kinds of performances together, you can see we belong here.
“We have a massive game, a massive challenge in Bordeaux next Saturday, but that is the level of rugby in this competition.
“I genuinely believe we have taken steps forward in the last two games. Saturday was a one-point game which could have gone either and I could be sitting here celebrating a great Champions Cup win having seen our players put in the same effort and endeavour.”