Wayne Pivac sounded like a man with a realistic assessment of whether or not lightning will strike twice to spark the Scarlets’ European cause.
The head coach had seen his side beaten 45-27 at Leicester Tigers on Friday night, their second successive defeat in the Heineken Champions Cup following their home loss to Racing 92.
Last year, the Scarlets produced a minor miracle in recovering from an identical start to go all the way to the semi-finals, but Pivac knows a crucial factor a year ago was the collection of two losing bonus points at this stage, compared to this campaign’s one.
“We left a bonus point out there at the end and that was disappointing,” admitted the New Zealander.
“We need to consolidate when we come back in and get back-to-back results against Ulster. It’s as simple as that.
“We didn’t start well, we conceded 10 points in the first ten minutes, which put us under a bit of pressure. We fought back well to close the gap back down by half time and then to hit the lead in the second half.
“But we have to say well done to Leicester Tigers on that performance, particularly in the last quarter. They were good enough to capitalise on our errors and put us away in the end.”
Nor was Pivac willing to use the absence of 11 injured players as an excuse for failing to become the first Welsh team to win at Welford Road in Europe.
“Every team has got injuries at this time of the season. We felt that the team that we put out there was good enough to get the job done, as it turns out it wasn’t.”
The Tigers’ pack dominated an injury-ravaged Scarlets eight and their pressure was rewarded with five tries scored by Harry Wells, Guy Thompson, Sione Kalamafoni, Manu Tuilagi and Jonny May. George Ford added four penalties and four conversions.
The Scarlets replied with tries from Gareth Davies, Steff Evans and Blade Thomson, with Leigh Halfpenny kicking two penalties and three conversions.
Davies caused Leicester problems with his elusive running as he beat two defenders to set up a try for Thomson, with Halfpenny’s conversion giving the Scarlets a 27-25 lead going into the final quarter.
But they were only ahead for three minutes as Tuilagi battered his way over for a bonus point try with Ford’s conversion and a subsequent penalty putting Tigers back into the driving seat.
A fifth try from May and a fourth penalty emphasised Leicester’s second-half superiority.
Leicester coach Geordan Murphy said: “I think we simplified a few things at half-time. We played a little more direct and shortened up ball.
“We wanted to be direct, Jonny (May) ran a good line, we were at the breakdown early, Manu was on form getting a man of the match performance – we didn’t give Scarlets an opportunity to slow us down.
On Tuilagi’s man of the match display, Murphy added: “He’s been training really well, the scary thing about him is he is only going to get better the more game time he plays.
“He will grow in confidence and the thing with Manu is he doesn’t have to do anything special – if he does the nuts and bolts well he is a very good centre. I think he’ll get better as he goes.”
