Competition for places at Scarlets is healthy says Jones

Scarlets prop Rhodri Jones, who is fresh from a successful Six Nations campaign on a personal level, says that competition for the tighthead berth at the Scarlets is benefiting the players.

Jones, who will feature for the Scarlets on Saturday in the must win clash over Italian side Zebre Rugby kick-off 6.30pm, has made 72 appearances for the Scarlets and has tough competition at the region with fellow international prop Samson Lee, Jacobie Adriaanse and Horatiu Pungea also fighting for the front row place. Deacon Manu has missed most of the season through injury.

With Lee missing the region’s crunch match against Connacht at Parc y Scarlets a fortnight ago through injury Aberystwyth born Rhodri Jones made his first RaboDirect PRO12 start of the 2013-14 season; “I was very happy with how it went against Connacht last weekend. Connacht are one of the best scrums we’ve probably come against recently and I thought we scrummaged really well against them.”

With only eight regional appearances for the Scarlets in 2013-14 Jones is looking forward to making the most of the end of season opportunity; “I want to be playing at the Scarlets, getting in the squad and playing well for the region.

“It’s great that there’s a lot of competition for places. We have four good tight heads here and you’ve got to be doing well in training and games to get picked otherwise you won’t be playing.

“That’s what you need, you need competition – you need people pushing each other and it’s a good environment to be in.”

On the challenge of Zebre this Saturday at the Parc Jones added; “Zebre are going to be a tough challenge. We have to play our game, if we’re clinical and effective hopefully it’ll work out in our favour.”

Scarlets v Zebre, Saturday 12th April, kick-off 6.30pm.