Wayne Pivac believes he has enough generals in the field for the Scarlet army to conquer again this season.
The Guinness Pro14 champions begin the defence of their trophy at home to the new boys Southern Kings at Parc Y Scarlets on Saturday night.
Four years ago, when head coach Pivac first arrived from New Zealand, the absence of leadership in the squad meant matches were a hectic time involving the constant sending of messages to those players on the field.
It won’t quite be a case of siting back with his feet up when the league starts this weekend, but times have certainly changed for the region who swept all before them last season under the captaincy of Wales and Lions hooker Ken Owens.
“We have accountability and the senior players drive standards,” says Pivac.
“We’re getting some really good leaders out of that as a result. Since I arrived three or four years ago the key guys have really stepped up.
“Now this team is not remote controlled from the grandstand. We can improve again.
“We want to get to the stage where 100 per cent of the decisions are made by those on the field. If you get that you’re in a pretty good space.
“Ken and the guys who have led the team have done a brilliant job and when they’re not there, others step up.
“Jake Ball and Ken couldn’t play in the semi-final and final and other guys came to the fore like Tadhg Beirne, Ryan Elias and others. It’s building nicely.”
“It’s about picking your moments to play. It’s been a work in progress and yes, we’re going to tinker with our game, but not a lot.
“We know opposition teams are going to analyse and prepare for us and we have to be ready for that, obviously.”
As they surged to the title last season, the Scarlets averaged 37 points a game over three ties, two of them coming away from home in the semis and final against Leinster and Munster respectively.
Coming third in the regulation phase of the league, they had been long odds to lift the title.
But no other teams could live with their high energy, brazen counter-attacking strategy.
Owens says that style will not be curtailed just because they have lost their most eye-catching runner Liam Williams to Saracens, but there will be method to underpin any madness.
“There’s a lot of high risk and high reward, but it’s about players making calculated decisions on when to offload or when to pass,” says Owens.
“We’ve really grown in that as a squad. If we need to kick for field position we still do that, but with the quality of rugby we’ve been playing in attack, people tend to forget about how good our game management is.
“The understanding the players have within the squad is almost second nature now.
“Some boys are expecting offloads and running off each other naturally because they’ve done it so many times.
“Steff Evans is always on Jonathan Davies’s shoulder because he knows there’s an opportunity there.
“That was evident at the end of last season and the challenge now for us is to continue to do that under a lot more pressure.
“Sides are going to be analysing us a lot more this year.”
