Cunningham believes future's bright at Scarlets

A young Scarlets side made positive strides in the right direction despite going down to a 19-13 defeat against Cardiff Blues on Friday evening.

The region’s side included two debutants in the starting XV and was a relatively inexperienced side at senior regional level with an average age of only 21.

Scarlets Coach Ioan Cunningham, who has been the LV= Cup coaching reins at the Parc by Wayne Pivac, said: “We’re very pleased on the whole with the young players and what they have produced in the opening two rounds.

“We set out to take the game to the Blues and I thought we did show that in patches but couldn’t quite close it out in the end.”

Scarlets’ only try of the evening was gifted to flanker Sion Bennett after a chip over the top by outside half Josh Lewis.

Cunningham went on to say: “We were ecstatic that the try came off, fair play to Sion Bennett he switched on to it. At that stage we were hoping to kick on and needed that extra score in the end but it just didn’t come.”

The enthusiasm and determination was evident amongst the young group and elation was clear for all to see when the try was scored. Scarlets’ next generation will benefit from the exposure at a higher level with the experience standing them in good stead.

Cunningham believes that the region’s young stars have big futures ahead: “We had a very young front row in Ben Leung, Ryan Elias and Wyn Jones and I thought they did exceptionally well. This is exactly the learning curve they need to develop and move on in their careers.

“This experience will help them all massively as a collective. That’s what we wanted out of it. We were all disappointed not to get the win but it’s easy to see how much they’ve grown both individually and collectively over the last few weeks.”

Scarlets make a return to the Guinness PRO12 and to Parc y Scarlets on Friday 21st November to take on second placed Glasgow Warriors, kick-off 7.35pm.