Wayne Pivac believes Saturday night’s raucous atmosphere at Parc Y Scarlets will prove a turning point for the region.
The Scarlets booked their European Champions Cup quarter-final place with a gritty 30-27 victory over former champions Toulon.
It was night when the team proved they are capable of winning the tournament – mixing the flair they had shown at Bath in the previous round, with a determined defensive display to keep out the former champions in the final stages.
But head coach Pivac believes the fact the Scarlets filled their own ground to its 14,870 capacity could be even more significant than the progress they are making on the field.
“Tonight is a very special night for this ground,” said the New Zealander.
“Now, hopefully, we’re going to get more and more backing from the locals in terms of support.
“We had great support here tonight. I think it was really important for the future to come away with that win.
“It is a little bit of history for this team in particular. We want to create our own history and the boys are working hard towards that. We’re very pleased.”
The Scarlets had achieved sell-out attendances before this match, but never in Europe and only for their regular festive local derby against the Ospreys.
The previous best at the ground for a European game was 12,392 against Leicester Tigers in 2011 and when the Scarlets hosted Toulon last season, 6,000 fewer turned up as they managed a crowd of 8,579.
Now, as the club aims to maintain its growing support, Pivac is hoping to gain the lure of a home quarter-final which they can clinch if other results go in their favour on Sunday.
He added: “Some games have to go our way now. Not getting the bonus point tonight means that it’s in the balance.
“We’ll be hoping certain teams will help us out! The boys would love to play at home but we’re very happy to be in the quarters and we’ll just wait and see.”
The Scarlets last achieved European top tier quarter-final qualification 11 years ago when captain Ken Owens was also part of the squad.
“We have come a long way in the last three years,” said Owens.
“I thought this was a monumental effort against a world-class side.
“I have not felt like this since I was a 19-year-old in 2007 with the Scarlets.
“Winning the league last year is one thing, but you judge yourself on Europe.”
The Scarlets are only the third team in history to progress to European quarter-finals after losing the opening two games.
Pivac added: “We’re very pleased that we defended the way we did to win the game. I thought we scored some good tries in the first half, picked up a bit of a lead and it was all down to our defence after that.
“Big guys kept coming at us and our boys kept getting up and knocking them over at the end there. Byron Hayward is a very happy man and so he should be because the boys stood up defensively, which won us the game in the end.
“We set some goals as a team and obviously we wanted to be in the play-offs and try to do well again in the PRO14 but the next frontier was always to crack the play-offs for the European Champions Cup and the players were very desperate to do that.
“After a slow start in rounds one and two I think it has been a fantastic effort to win all four, which is what we had to do.”
Tries before the interval by wing Tom Prydie, centre Hadleigh Parkes and fly-half Dan Jones underpinned a stylish Scarlets success, with Jones adding three conversions and two penalties, and Rhys Patchell a long-range penalty.
