Scarlets V Edinburgh

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Scarlets

15 Li Williams
14 Reynolds
13 Maule
12 Warren
11 Fenby
10 Thomas
9 A Davies

1 John
2 E Phillips
3 Lee
4 Ball
5 Snyman
6 Shingler
7 Edwards
8 McCusker

(bench -: Rees, Rh Jones, Manu, Timani, Murphy, G Davies, O Williams, K Phillips)



Edinburgh

15 Tonks
14 Fife
13 Cairns
12 Atiga
11 Jones
10 Leonard
9 Rees

1 Jacobsen
2 Lawrie
3 Nel
4 Parker
5 Cox CAPTAIN
6 McInally
7 Watson
8 Denton

(Bench -:Titterrell, Yapp, Allan, McAlpine, Talei, Leck, Francis, Brown)

Referee: Giuseppe Vivarini (FIR)

Assistant Referees: Tim Hayes, Greg Morgan (both WRU)

Citing Commissioner: Aurwel Morgan (WRU)

TMO: Paul Adams (WRU)


Scarlets' three game winning run in all competitions ended with their 5-32 reversal in Leinster on Saturday.

The Welshmen have won their last three fixtures at Parc y Scarlets since Clermont Auvergne won there, 29-0, in the European Cup on 19 January. Scarlets have won their last four home games against Scottish visitors.

Edinburgh Rugby have slipped to ten successive defeats in all tournaments - their worst run in the professional era.

Edinburgh's only win on their last 14 visits to Wales in all competitions since December 2009 was 21-19 over Cardiff Blues at the Arms Park in the RaboDirect PRO12 on 7 September 2012.

Scarlets have taken four of their last five encounters with Edinburgh, whilst the Scotsmen's only previous victory at Parc y Scarlets was 17-16 in the PRO12 on 4 December 2009.

How bad we our lineout?? Cox was in the papers today trying to say statistically we have the 2nd best lineout in the league - Love sacks!

Love sacks indeed, lost 5/11 apparently.

thebluesmancometh wrote:Just want to point out how classy does Rees look, delivery is lovely and he knows when to slow the ball down or go hell for leather!!

Agree, Rees was Edinburghs best player my a mile, should have been MOM.
He is too-good for that side.

Edinburghs line was dire, but to be honest Shingler was pretty impressive in the line so maybe that made it look worse.

Probably the worst match i have seen this season. Scarlets kicking was woeful, the ref didn't make a single call on his own and missed stuff from both sides. Edinburgh probably deserved the win purely because they wanted it more, and their pass for the try was class.

Closer than I thought it was going to be. We attacked for long periods but couldn't finish it off, looked under pressure whenever Edinburgh broke the line, but ultimately won a tight game that could have gone either way. The ref did his level best to be as clueless as possible too which didn't help the game. Still a wins a win and it was one we needed badly as every point counts now.

The Scarlets tactics have changes significantly from the style of rugby they were playing at the start of the season and the style they are normally associated with.

At the start of the season they played a fast wide game, looking to stretch and outflank defences. They now attack very close to the breakdown, with very little width. This may be an effect of Holley's coaching as this is a similar game to the one played by the Ospreys when he was in charge. This style does not seem to suit the Scarlets and certainly does not seem to impress their supporters.

Seagul I was thinking the same thing. It is almost like someone in the coachign team said "You know what we finally have a pack, lets use them as much as possible", and didn't consider using the pack to bring the wider boys in. Hopefully when we get our internationals back we can mix the wide play and the forward grunt together and play a ballenced game.

SS & SG, For me the change in tactics has come from the coaches trying to counter the fact that everyone seems to be using the blitz defence against us at the moment resulting in far to many knock ons and penalties conceded in contact for not releasing.
In the Edinbrugh game we did not have anyone capable of playing heads up rugby and reading the field around them, even when Owen Williams came on he did not look fully recovered from the vomiting bug he has been unable to train through so he didn't make the difference we had hoped he would, the return of Rhys is critical in this respect, he may not be an 80% kicker but he reads the game and releases the backs, we just need a kicker elsewhere in the backline.
With a little luck Steve Shingler will provide that next season and Owen Williams will give us the back up we need for Rhys.
In the meantime I would expect to see more of the territorial kicking based game we have had recently and if it puts us in the playoffs then so be it, its been 9 years since we made the top 4 so if we get there in Easterby's 1st season in charge that wont really be to bad an effort from a new coaching team.

RDW_Scotland wrote:How bad we our lineout?? Cox was in the papers today trying to say statistically we have the 2nd best lineout in the league - Love sacks!

Whilst I all for players trying to defend themselves, that sort of comment in the papers is just insulting to Edinburgh fans. Our lineout is AWFUL, and has been all season. We're not the worst at pinching the odd ball here and there, but give us an attacking lineout in the opposition 22 and you can bet your house on the opposition hoovering up the ball.

It's taken two weeks of intensive therapy to forget the Cardiff omnishambles in the lineout, and it's all come flooding back.

funnyExiledScot wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:How bad we our lineout?? Cox was in the papers today trying to say statistically we have the 2nd best lineout in the league - Love sacks!

Whilst I all for players trying to defend themselves, that sort of comment in the papers is just insulting to Edinburgh fans. Our lineout is AWFUL, and has been all season. We're not the worst at pinching the odd ball here and there, but give us an attacking lineout in the opposition 22 and you can bet your house on the opposition hoovering up the ball.

It's taken two weeks of intensive therapy to forget the Cardiff omnishambles in the lineout, and it's all come flooding back.

To be honest, whenever I see a Sean Cox interview these days, I tend to take it with a bucketful of salt it as he just talks guff. Wasnt this the same interview where he basically said we can either have a scottish team or a winning team?

If he did that's utter rubbish.

On the evidence of this and last season, we can either have a dire team full of NSQs, or a dire team full of Scots. I know which side I'd rather support......