New international centre partnership for Scarlets in Munster challenge

In what promises to be a St David’s Day celebration to remember at Parc y Scarlets this Saturday, 1st March, Scarlets will welcome table-toppers Munster to heart and soul rugby country in the RaboDirect PRO12.

Buoyed by their 25-21 victory over Edinburgh last Saturday coupled with the fact that the Munstermen are going for a clean sweep of eight successive wins over Welsh regions this season, a feat that has never been accomplished by any side before, the Scarlets will be looking to put in huge performance in front of a passionate home crowd at Parc y Scarlets.

The Scarlets have won two from two in the RaboDirect PRO12 of late and have won three of their last four fixtures against Irish provinces at Parc y Scarlets. The West Wales region secured an 18-10 victory over Munster in February 2013 when they last visited the Parc.

Scarlets Head Coach has made only once change to the side that secured victory over Edinburgh last Saturday afternoon as the region welcomes the return of co-captain and British & Irish Lions centre Jonathan Davies.

Davies will line-up alongside former England international Olly Barkley in a new-look centre partnership for the Scarlets as the homeside look to continue with their winning run.

Easterby said: “Munster are a pretty good outfit at the minute and are pretty settled. They are still able to pick a very strong team despite missing a number of internationals.

“We are under no illusion that they’ll be coming here nothing less than well equipped to mix up their game and we will have to be at our best and far better defensively.

“Having narrowly missed out on a victory late on in injury time against Munster at Musgrave Park before Christmas we’ve had plenty of motivation in training this week! We put ourselves in a really good position to win away from home but gave them a foothold in the dying minutes and managed to stick at it.”

With nine points from ten in the previous two rounds Easterby went on to say: “We had a clear vision coming back into this block of RaboDirect PRO12 fixtures, there were 50 points up for grabs and we’re focused on being as clinical as we can be to pick up as many of those 50 points as we can.

“We just need to keep believing and keep pushing. I definitely feel that we can take confidence from the last couple of results and take on Munster with plenty to look forward to in the coming weeks.”

Scarlets to take on Munster at Parc y Scarlets, Saturday 1st March, kick-off 6.30pm:

15 Jordan Williams, 14 Kristian Phillips, 13 Jonathan Davies, 12 Olly Barkley, 11 Frazier Climo, 10 Aled Thomas, 9 Gareth Davies, 1 Phil John, 2 Emyr Phillips, 3 Samson Lee, 4 George Earle, 5 Johan Snyman, 6 Josh Turnbull, 7 John Barclay, 8 Rob McCusker ©

Replacements: Kirby Myhill, Rob Evans, Jacobie Adriaanse, Richard Kelly, Sione Timani, Rhodri Williams, Gareth Maule, Adam Warren