Wayne Pivac believes the Scarlets will be stronger – both in numbers and in spirit – when they visit Edinburgh next week after an impressive against-the-odds victory in South Africa.
Despite the absence of 20 players through international calls, injuries and suspension, the region won 41-34 on Friday night against the Southern Kings in Port Elizabeth.
It underlined the Scarlets’ depth and the bonus point victory was an achievement it is hard to imagine any of the other three regions would have managed in the same circumstances.
The five points also moved the Scarlets level on points with Lienster at the top of Guinness Pro14 Conference B, although the Irish side have a game in hand.
“We’ll go to Edinburgh next week with a little bit of confidence from today’s result,” said Pivac.
“We know it’s going to be a big game as we’re both right up there in the mix.”
Dafydd Hughes, Will Boyde, Ioan Nicholas, Werner Kruger, Kieran Hardy and Taylor Davies combined for six Scarlets tries and outside-half Dan Jones kicked 11 points.
For Pivac, the resilience and the style reminded him of much of last season’s campaign.
“We saw a lot of what resembled last year’s performance out here, played in the same Test window. We had something like 21 players in all unavailable for today’s game.
“I thought the boys showed a lot of heart and a lot of ability to stick to what we’d trained during the week to get that result, and the way we achieved it, coming from behind on numerous occasions. I’m very, very pleased for them.”
The Scarlets were forces to make a late change ahead of the game with hooker Marc Jones dropping out through illness.
“Marc Jones was due to start, but we pulled him out an hour before leaving the hotel. The two young hookers got on and scored tries and I thought did very well.
“Credit goes to some of the young guys today who stepped up well. Will Boyde and Josh Macleod have been immense since coming back from their injuries.
“We’re disappointed that we turned some ball over and gifted them some tries but we’re very pleased to have stayed in the fight and come away with the win.
“We’ll hopefully have a couple of players back next week including Kieron Fonotia back from suspension, that’ll be great.
“We went with a 6/2 bench tonight because we’re down on numbers really. Lewis Rawlins is not far off and Blade Thomson should be back with us next week.”
