A spirited Scarlets bowed out of this season’s BKT United Rugby Championship by pushing hot favourites Leinster all the way in an incident-packed Aviva Stadium quarter-final.
Dwayne Peel’s side trailed by just a point at the interval after tries from Tom Rogers and Blair Murray had stunned the hosts.
But bolstered by a star-studded replacements’ bench, Leinster proved too strong in the second period to run out 33-21 victors.
Afterwards Peel was rightly proud of the character shown by his players, who in his words ‘emptied the tank’.
And although the Scarlets’ season is now over, the West Walians can look forward to what lies ahead with real optimism.
The writing had been on the wall early at the Aviva as a formidable Leinster line-up powered out of the blocks to score twice in the opening nine minutes.
With just four minutes on the clock, left wing James Lowe was freed out wide after an energy-sapping period of phase play that stretched the Scarlets defence on both edges.
The home fans were celebrating a second soon after, this time Jack Conan was sent through and he found fellow Lions tourist Jamison Gibson-Park on a free run to the posts. Half-back partner Sam Predergast landed the simple conversion.
The Scarlets desperately needed to fire a shot and they did just that on the 19-minute mark with a superbly-constructed try by Tom Rogers.
A couple of strong carries by Alec Hepburn and Ryan Elias set Scarlets on the front foot, slick hands sent Rogers into space and the Wales international did brilliantly to cut inside and show good strength to stretch over. Sam Costelow nailed the touchline conversion.
As the half wore on, Scarlets were able to disrupt the home side’s fluidity and the game was turned on its head in a breathless period on the stroke of half-time.
First it looked like Leinster would claim a killer score as a blue wave of attacks headed towards the Scarlets line.
But when Predergast failed to gather a ropey pass, a combination of Ellis Mee and Blair Murray hacked the ball downfield and it was Murray who showed expert skills and composure to finish at the posts. Costelow’s conversion made it a one-point game at the break, to the stunned disbelief of the Aviva faithful.
However, Leinster had their third try five minutes into the second half, a clever chip over the top by Prendergast saw Jamie Osborne win the race to the touchdown, although it needed the TMO to confirm the score.
Costelow was wide with a long-range penalty attempt, but with Leinster’s big-name bench having a big impact, the home side started to take a firm grip on the game.
Scarlets were reduced to men 14 when Hepburn was shown yellow for an infringement at a ruck close to the line and the tournament favourites took advantage by sending full-back Hugo Keenan across the whitewash for try number four.
Predergast was wide with the conversion, but then added a short-range penalty to push his side two scores ahead.
Scarlets refused to throw in the towel and crossed for their third try when two back-door passes from Sam Lousi and Marnus van der Merwe put Johnny Williams on an arcing run to the posts. Replacement Ioan Lloyd added the extras.
But with the clock counting down, Prendergast added another penalty to make it 33-21 and that is how it stayed until the final whistle.