Scarlets v Treviso, Thursday 23.2.12

First topic message reminder :

Scarlets head into this match, only 6 points off a play off spot and they badly need to get a win here, after the battling LBP they claimed away to Leinster last week.

Scarlets team:

Dan Newton, Lee Williams, Gareth Maule, Adam Warren, Andy Fenby, Aled Thomas, Gareth Davies

Phil John, Emyr Phillips, Deacon Manu, Dom Day, Damien Welch, Josh Turnbull, Johnathan Edwards, Kieran Murphy

Reps:

Craig Hawkins, Rhodri Jones, Peter Edwards, Lou Reed, Aaron Shingler, Liam Davies, Nick Reynolds, Liam Williams

Treviso team:

15 Ludovico Nitoglia 14 Benjamin De Jager 13 Tommaso Iannone 12 Andrea Pratichetti 11 Brendan Williams 10 Willem De Waal 9 Simon Picone 8 Marco Filippucci 7 Gonzalo Padrò 6 Manoa Vosawai 5 Valerio Bernabò 4 Enrico Pavanello 3 Pedro Di Santo 2 Franco Sbaraglini (capitano) 1 Ignacio Fernandez Rouyet

Reps:

16 Enrico Ceccato 17 Augusto Allori 18 Carlo Fazzari 19 Benjamin Vermaak 20 Diego Vidal 21 Ezio Galon 22 Gonzalo Garcia 23 Alberto Di Bernardo


Scarlets have four returning internationals on the bench with Liam Williams, Lou Reed, Aaron Shingler and Rhodri Jones. Stephen Jones remains with the Wales squad over doubts on James Hook's fitness.

Treviso are without 13 players due to international call ups but they do see the return of Brendan Williams on the wing who could be a key player for them.

Looking at the teams, I firmly believe Scarlets should get the win (if not, then our play off chances will take a huge blow). It would be great to see if we could get a TBP also. 4 points minimum from this match for me, but Treviso do worry me despite all their call ups. They've had a very solid season so far and will be looking to build on that themselves.

crazy isn't it? It wouldnt be quite so bad if the signing were brilliant players...but they're not!

The first headline of the "Sun on Sunday" has been leaked:

"JPR's love child scores for Scarlets"

he is a bit like him, isn't he?

Still so happy with that win (and still glad I didn't witness most of the 1st half).

Only caught the last 10 minutes of this game. But it really looked like a load of old horse's poo.

The kind of game that gets the celtic league a bad name.

Am I wrong? Was the other 70 scintillating and they just tired?

Players looked disinterested and lacked concentration etc.

I only saw the last 5 mins of the 1st half, and all the 2nd Jen so can't comment on the whole thing.

Conditions though I don't think helped with handling etc, there were a lot of knock ons and the ref appeared quite whistle happy.

I enjoyed it though, lots of attacking intent from both sides with the Scarlets nearly always looking to run it. Players like Turnbull and Phillips put in a good shift as well.

So not the highest quality no, but considering the conditions and the amount of players both teams are missing, not bad at all.

It sounded like a cracking match for tries but was it a bit "rugby-lite" like some of the Super 15 matches. Still though regardless it must have been a thoroughly entertaining match for both fans who attended.

red_stag wrote:It sounded like a cracking match for tries but was it a bit "rugby-lite" like some of the Super 15 matches. Still though regardless it must have been a thoroughly entertaining match for both fans who attended.

The Scarlets sneaked in for a BP try at the end. Nice break, but there was some comedy defending.

Just looked like 2 teams who couldn't muster the enthusiasm to get stuck in. I tuned in because it was our 2 most recent opponents.

An intensity free zone.

Have to stress again I only saw the end. But the Scarlets were behind at half time.

nah it was intense, but more in patches really.

Like I said it was a bit stop start so hard to get a real flow to the game. I enjoyed it though anyway, it's been ages since the Scarlets scored 5 tries in one match

God Dreamer imagine you were a Scotland fan, you'd be lucky to see one try in five matches.

rugbydreamer wrote:nah it was intense, but more in patches really.

Like I said it was a bit stop start so hard to get a real flow to the game. I enjoyed it though anyway, it's been ages since the Scarlets scored 5 tries in one match

Well it just goes to show that you can get a skewed view of a game when you just watch the end.

Were there many at it? (I'm looking for other things to support my theory here, like maybe a quiet crowd )

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:Were there many at it? (I'm looking for other things to support my theory here, like maybe a quiet crowd )

See my post above where I mention "Both fans who were at the match" not "both sets of fans".

A typo or a correct statement of face. . . . . you decide!!

oof that's harsh Stag!








True though.

red_stag wrote:God Dreamer imagine you were a Scotland fan, you'd be lucky to see one try in five years.

Fixed

The crowd didn't look very big at all but that's not very surprising for a ridiculous Thursday night match. I'm a season ticket holder and I couldn't make it

I'd say we'd have been lucky to get 5,000 loooking at it on the tv, but the website says there were 6,594. Definitely wasn't that much there! (they must have included season ticket holders in that figure)

I thought, while the quality wasn't always the highest (particularly from the Scarlets grr) both sides showed attacking intent and, particularly in the 2nd half, were very creative and positive. And while there may not have been a clinical edge to the game - it was still exciting in the amount of tries scored, the Scarlets come back and the fact that even when the Scarlets scored 3 tries and were leading, it would have only taken 2 mistakes for Treviso to win with a bonus point.

The organisation of the games is shocking isn't it dreamer? - This week would be the perfect week for a Sunday game (so it doesn't interfere with the Wales game) yet they played a few games on Sunday last week, and this week are playing on a Thursday (so lots of players released from the int squad didn't have much time to train before the game). This means that fans such as myself, Dreamer and Cymro have no way of making it to and from the game - It's such a mess.

Of all the regions, Scarlets is the one least suited to having midweek games. I mean this with the greatest respect but Llanelli is a one horse town. How many Scarlets fans actually live in Llanelli?

They should be playing to suit the fans. In Cardiff, Swansea or Newport this wouldnt be as big a deal.

Well exactly Stag. Scarlets don't have a city base to get the bigger footfall of walk up fans on the day. We easily have the biggest travelling support of fans in Wales to get to home games.

I find it hard enough to go to Friday night matches, so Thursday ones are impossible.

The whole scheduling of the league is a shambles though, summed up on the Wales v Scotland weekend. When all the Scottish fans were in Wales, they decided to have the O's and Scarlets play up in Scotland! Would have made far more crowd and financial sense to have had the Scottish sides playing Dragons and Blues on that weekend.

Llanelli's actually quite a large town, and you could say it's much better suited than Connaught.

The problem is the antiquated rail system in Britain and Wales in particular (I mean if you want to get from Aberystwyth to Swansea you need to go out to Shrewbury in England, then down to Newport and back across Wales to Swansea) - this means that trains from Llanelli to Cardiff stop at 9:00 (and buses stop at 6)

But regardless of this we've still got the highest avg attendance of the Welsh regions.

The Blues recently said that the organisation is terrible for them as well, as they can't market games more than a few weeks in advance because the league hasn't decided which day the games will be played on.

I'm not sure its better suited than Connacht.

Galway is 50% larger than Llanelli?

yeah isn't there some fuss about the tv rights still haven't been settled for some matches, so the dates are still yet to be finalised?

That seems absolutely crazy to me. No league should be organised in such an amature way.

It's crazy that the league is v good at the moment but there is still so much room for it to improve, especially how it's organised.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:
But regardless of this we've still got the highest avg attendance of the Welsh regions.

This is the real achievement. Scarlets are doing EXCELLENT off the pitch IMO. They embody what Wales are about at the moment and are literally not far off being a Heineken Cup contender.

The Top 14 is the same. As you know Dreamer we organise tours to France and I have got 5 groups headed to south of France to see some games between now and May. The date and time still havent been picked.

We are a TH and one 2nd row off being contenders in the HEC I reckon Stag. Same as it has been for seasons now though! oh, and a reliable kicker I guess...


And that's crazy about the dates not being finalised for that league either. I just find it madness.

rugbydreamer wrote:We are a TH and one 2nd row off being contenders in the HEC I reckon Stag. Same as it has been for seasons now though! oh, and a reliable kicker I guess...

IMO you need one top forward and you need your team to believe in itself far far more.

I think they believe enough alright Stag, tis just they can't always keep the intensity up in HEC matches for the full 80 that's the problem.

And this season we never had the continuity in our backline through injuries/lack of training time for us ever to get up the highest level needed. It's annoying as we got so close to getting to the QF's despite that, but no matter. I think for this squad, where it's at at the moment, the Amlin QF's is good for us.

Didn't realise Galway was so big Red Stag - although outside of that there isn't much in the way of big population centres, where as Carmarthen, Swansea, Port Talbot aren't a million miles away from Llanelli (20 miles), and many people find work in these towns yet still live in the Llanelli area.

Still I'm pleased with the good work the Scarlets are doing off the pitch and Connacht are doing on it - it's just a real shame that we are so close to having an excellent side and it's being threatened by foreign sides potentially outbidding us for our own players.

rugbydreamer wrote:I think they believe enough alright Stag, tis just they can't always keep the intensity up in HEC matches for the full 80 that's the problem.

And this season we never had the continuity in our backline through injuries/lack of training time for us ever to get up the highest level needed. It's annoying as we got so close to getting to the QF's despite that, but no matter. I think for this squad, where it's at at the moment, the Amlin QF's is good for us.

I can't wait till next season with JD2, Maule, S Williams & Warren all fighting for the centre positions and Stodds, North, Liam Williams, Lee Williams and Ionghi all fighting for the back 3 positions - with all the team playing togher most of the time (besides the AI's) that should give us a deadly backline, and then as long as we keep Liam Davies we'll have real battles going on all over the pitch

Smirnoff - yea there are nearly 80,000 in Galway its actually bigger I think than Limerick where Munster are based. I find it amazing how close the Welsh regions are.

Dreamer - I dont think Scarlets truly believed they were going to beat Munster in the HEC. I saw it in both Parc y Scarlets and Thomond Park. Twice I felt Scarlets were the better team but simply didnt look fully confident and allowed Munster to get back into the match.

Stag - of course we didn't look fully confident! Our squad hadn't trained together fully for over a month before those matches! It's fine lines at that level, and we created numerous chances that we couldn't finish off. Add to that the missed kicks and well yeah, there ya go. two L's instead of two W's


Priest - definitely, tis just so key that we keep Foxy. Our backline isn't half as threatening without him. Scott need to really up his game too.

Dreamer - report in the writer's section. Can you have a look please? ta.

Done

Didn't realise that Red Stag - think I must have thought Galway was small coz the surrounding area is quite sparsely populated (250k in County Galway as opposed to 350k in the old Dyfed area)

Also amazed that it's bigger than Limerick!

As dreamer says it's the little differences and I believe deeply that the Oz game is the reason all the Welsh regions struggled in the HEC (I know the Blues are in the QF, but they didn't look comfortable and would have expected to win the group)

Yes its funny.

Cork is much bigger than Limerick. Rather than playing the big match in the big city Munster do the opposite and it works well.

- When the HEC and big games are in Thomond Park everyone in Limerick tries to go and people from Cork don't mind the communte that much as it is for a big match.

- When the smaller matchers are in Musgrave Park people in Cork are so happy to have a match in their stadium so its full too.