New Head Coach Pivac pleased with Scarlets opener

Scarlets Head Coach Wayne Pivac was pleased with his side’s performance in a 26 all draw against Bath Rugby.

The Scarlets came back from a 12-0 and 26-14 deficit against an experienced Bath side crossing for four tries scored by first half captain Rob McCusker, second half captain Scott Williams, James Davies and Aled Davies.

A number of new faces made their mark in the traditional Rag Doll fixture and Pivac was pleased with his side’s overall opening performance, he said: “I thought there were more positives than negatives in that performance. I think we come away with plenty to work on which is a good sign after one game; I’d hate to be playing our top performance here today.

“Most of the boys had a pretty successful first up game with a number of them having a crack at some things for the first time. We have three weeks yet before Ulster and the set piece will improve – I have no doubt about that.”

With a dry summer’s afternoon allowing for an expansive and high tempo game Pivac went on to say; “It just means that we’ve got to work really, really hard in terms of our conditioning. The boys have done a really good phase so far but if anything we want to keep raising the bar.

“It was an overall positive start when you know you’ve got a lot of international players to bring into that group. The pleasing thing was some of those guys were here and they saw some of the younger guys put their hands up which is good because we want to have competition in the squad in all places.”

Scarlets take on Gloucester at Parc y Scarlets ahead of the Guinness PRO12 opener against Ulster and a healthy competition amongst squad players will push the team on, Pivac went on to say; “I don’t know a lot about the players, I’ve done some research since being hear and back at home before I left but everybody has an opportunity to stake a claim for Ulster.”