Scarlets and the secret weapon that defeated Leinster in April

Irish Daily Mirror

2 days ago

Leinster head into their URC quarter-final with Scarlets at the Aviva this afternoon as hot, hot favourites.
The bookies are offering Scarlets at even money plus-24 points despite the Welsh team winning the similar fixture by 13 points in Llanelli in late April.
The match was marked by Scarlets hiding their kicking intent well, using four different players - full-back Blair Murray, centre Johnny Williams and half-backs Sam Costelow, Gareth Davies (injured today), at various times to take on the task.
Lesser noted was the pressure put on the Blues front-row with Ronan Kelleher labelling Scarlets 'tricky' and Leo Cullen adding there was some 'messing around' which starting trio Healy-Kelleher-Clarkson starting didn't quite get to grips with
"Yeh, there was a little bit of just sort of messing around in terms of weight," offered Cullen who has recalled Andrew Porter to loose-head for the clash.
"So in the scrum there's obviously different teams will do things differently, what they (Scarlets) will do is they will load up their locks (second-rows) off their knees and there can be a lot of weight that comes forward on the bind phase and it's trying to deal with some of that weight.
"We are a team that comes off split-stance, we would like to have a gap so then you're able to so we have stability, whereas that's a different philosophy.
"And obviously there's a lot of debate goes around with Scrum Coaches and referees and that's why they would communicate quite a lot in the dressing room.
"Every time a referee comes into a dressing room before a game, who does he talk to? He talks to the front-row first."
Scarlet loosehead Alec Hepburn stayed in the fight for 78 minutes last April essentially getting the better of Thomas Clarkson and 50th minute replacement Rabah Slimani and this will clearly be an area Leinster will be looking to improve on.
Porter's restoration to loosehead and the interesting selection of Kelleher is down to the idea he is a better scrummager than Dan Sheehan (with the reverse applicable at lineout time).
"No," said Cullen when asked where Scarlets doing anything illegal or was the referee at fault at Parc y Scarlets, "we wouldn't have complained but we would have an ongoing conversation pre and post games. That's why we just had normal course events."
The end of the season is in sight - and linear - in that the focus is one competition, winning three games.
'Exactly, we want to extend it out now, it's not the worst thing to do as a career, train in the good weather. And for the group as well, the group wants to continue on.
"Scarlets will be saying the same thing, they'll be hugely motivated, it's a big deal for them, they haven't been in a play-off game in a little while so we lost to them in the 2017 semi-final and that was a game that stung for a while as well."
It was, to be fair, quite the shock at the RDS at the time.
"They haven't changed that drastically in the way they play since then, strong poachers at the ball, Johnny Barclay and Tadhg Beirne were there, if you remember they had a player sent off in that game, no11 Steff Evans, after 37 minutes.
"We played against 14 men, they were very clinical, they scored a couple of tries before half time which takes my memory back to recent memory, back to Northampton.
"We conceded 17 points in the 12 minutes prior to half time when Northampton had a man in the bin. That's a proper sucker punch to a team,isn't it?
"Everyone looks back at the Northampton game whether your mind goes to not being quite right, whatever it is, the players certainl talk like they were right mentally.
"But there was a period before the half, ironically after we scored to go 15-10 up and then we conceded three tries, when we go 15-27 down at half-time and get stung by that.
"Making sure we deal with that and learn from the past, I'm talking a long time ago in 2017 when Scarlets won a semi-final here, they'll be drawing on whatever they can draw on."
It is knockout rugby from herein, no second chances, no backdoors.
"It's on the day, it's not about what happened before. Scarlets, don't care if they are eighth or first, they are just here for a knockout game, and spoil the party for us, and go on and extend their season."
"The players need to make sure that they do that. They need to make sure that however good Scarlets are going to be they will do everything in their power to be better than them so but the reality is that we know it's just about being one better than the opposition.
"Listen to Bordeaux talking after the weekend, I don't think they said they played particularly well but they just need to play better than the opposition so unfortunately that's knockout games, what they come down to be that little bit better than the opposition."
Scarlets captain Josh Macleod admits that while his side posted 35 points in attack the last time the sides met, he expects to have to work harder on the other side of the ball today.'I am not too sure, but one thing I do know is that when you get into knockouts, defences win you championships and we need to be there.
"Attack is not really my forte, but if we can score another 35 points it will go a long way to winning the game.
"We will try to be positive, we have a gameplan that we have installed, and yes, we do know that come the 80 minutes we are going to have to score that three, four, five tries in order to beat them.'
Leinster: Hugo Keenan, Jimmy O'Brien, Jamie Osborne, Jordie Barrett, James Lowe, Sam Prendergast, Jamison Gibson-Park, Andrew Porter, Rónan Kelleher, Thomas Clarkson, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan, Ryan Baird, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan (CAPT)
Replacements: Dan Sheehan, Jack Boyle, Rabah Slimani, RG Snyman, Max Deegan, Scott Penny, Luke McGrath, Ciarán Frawley
Scarlets: Blair Murray, Tom Rogers, Joe Roberts, Johnny Williams, Ellis Mee, Sam Costelow, Archie Hughes, Alec Hepburn, Ryan Elias, Henry Thomas, Alex Craig, Sam Lousi, Vaea Fifita, Josh Macleod (CAPT), Taine Plumtree
Replacements: Marnus van der Merwe, Kemsley Mathias, Sam Wainwright, Dan Davis, Jarrod Taylor, Efan Jones, Ioan Lloyd, Macs Page