Over two thousand people were treated to a feast of rugby at Parc Eirias on Saturday afternoon as both Scarlets and Bath fielded strong sides that included a whole host of international names.
Scarlets welcomed the return of backline pairing Scott and Liam Williams as well as hooker Emyr Phillips, who made his return from the injury suffered in January whilst Bath saw newcomer Taulupe Faletau make his debut alongside fellow Wales international Rhys Priestland.
In what was a thrilling encounter with plenty of running rugby and attacking play Bath took the spoils scoring four tries to Scarlets’ two, final score 17-32.
Speaking after the game Scarlets head coach Wayne Pivac said; “Today’s performance was a big improvement on last week, as we’d expect, but there are still some areas that we need to work on. Having said that I thought we had a lot of possession in that first half and we played a lot of good footy, it was certainly a step in the right direction.
“I thought we were very competitive in the first half. It was great to have players like Scott and Liam back and I thought they added a lot when they were on the field.”
Scarlets welcome Munster Rugby to Parc y Scarlets in a fortnight’s time for the opening round of the GUINNESS PRO12 campaign. Pivac went on to say: “We have a lot of work to do during the week on the areas that were exposed today and then we’ll test those out in a live training scenario ahead of that opening game.”
Scarlets’ friendly against Bath was the region’s first game in North Wales in over ten years. Commenting on the experience as a whole Pivac said; “It was very, very pleasing. The facilities here at Parc Eirias are fantastic and the ground was in great condition.
“A good crowd turned up to watch two very strong sides and it was an enjoyable experience all round.”
Scarlets v Munster, Saturday 3rd September, kick-off 3pm at Parc y Scarlets.
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