Six-Try Scarlets Scoop Long-Awaited PRO12 Title

The six-try Scarlets swept Munster’s meek challenge aside to win a one-sided GUINNESS PRO12 final 46-22 at the Aviva Stadium.

Wayne Pivac’s men captured the Welsh region’s second PRO12 title – and first since 2004 – as their devastatingly potent attack floored an Irish province for the second week running.

Impressive semi-final winners at Leinster, the Scarlets sauntered into a 29-3 lead with four tries in the opening half-an-hour. Coping much better with the greasy ball, Liam Williams, Steff Evans, Gareth Davies and Tadhg Beirne all touched down with Rhys Patchell kicking nine points.

A converted 39th-minute score from Tyler Bleyendaal, adding to his early penalty, cut the deficit to 19 points for a rather shell-shocked Munster, who were wearing their all-navy alternate strip.

Patchell responded with a 44th minute penalty before a late flurry of scores in front a record PRO12 final attendance of 44,558. Tries from Andrew Conway and Keith Earls were of scant consolation to Munster as replacement DTH van der Merwe and James Davies took the Scarlets’ haul to six in the end. 

With too many of their leading players off-form, Munster were unable to lift the trophy in Anthony Foley’s memory as the hungrier and superior Scarlets condemned the province to their second PRO12 final defeat in three years.

The Scarlets backs, so effective with ball in hand against Leinster, were first to create an opening, out-half Patchell teeing off a move that saw Johnny Mcnicholl threaten from halfway.

A scrum penalty against Samson Lee allowed Bleyendaal to boot Munster into a sixth-minute lead, but from a subsequent penalty advantage for the Scarlets, winger Williams beat Earls to Patchell’s brilliant cross-field kick for a momentum-building try.

The try’s creator was unable to convert from the right touchline, however Munster had a real let-off when an error-prone Francis Saili went unpunished for a deliberate knock-on as McNicholl tried to exploit an overlap.

The increasingly influential Patchell kicked the Scarlets into a deserved 8-3 lead and it got worse for Munster from the restart as a fumbled ruck ball saw the Welshmen counter for a superb 19th-minute try. Quick passing out to the left, with Saili shooting up aimlessly, saw Jonathan Davies and Steff Evans combine from deep for the latter’s 13th try of the campaign.

Patchell converted and Munster were really rocking, the same space opening up on Conway’s wing for the Llanelli outfit to flood forward, with only a knock-on from Gareth Davies preventing another long range try.

The Wales scrum half had the score that he desired just a few minutes later, centre Scott Williams taking advantage of a missed tackle to send Davies over for a seven-pointer.

Former Leinster lock Beirne twisted out of tackles from Dave Kilcoyne and CJ Stander to crash over for try number four, before a late Munster rally saw Conor Murray release his half-back partner Bleyendaal to go over close to the posts.

Patchell kept the Scarlets on course with a well-struck penalty early on the resumption, while Munster continued to be frustrated by their own ineffectiveness and their opponents’ mostly water-tight defence.

Even when mistake-ridden Munster got up close to the try-line, their day of real disappointment was summed up when they had a penalty reversed for captain Peter O’Mahony’s illegal entry at a ruck.

Excellent hands from Scarlets centres Davies and Williams sent van der Merwe cutting in past two defenders and he duly fended off Jack O’Donoghue for a classy 69th-minute try, converted by Liam Williams.

Conway profited from Rhys Marshall’s break up the right touchline to run in a belated first try for Munster. A second quickly followed thanks to an Earls intercept, but the Scarlets deservedly had the final say thanks to flanker James Davies, who must be on the cusp of a Wales call-up.

Davies the turnover specialist, fellow try scorer Beirne and man-of-the-match Aaron Shingler stood out for their work-rate up front as the Scarlets ran out comfortable winners, timing their title run to perfection with seven victories in a row, including a famous play-off double in Dublin 4.

Giving his post-match reaction, Munster director of rugby Rassie Erasmus said: “We probably should work a lot on (our attack) in pre-season. You can only change so much in two months of pre-season (last summer) and then during the season it’s tough to change a lot of things.

“We had to try and get in here and be a competitive team. We were a team which wasn’t rated at all at the beginning of the season. We had to try to be competitive, then try to build a winning culture, then try to get into play-offs.

“You can only progress so much in a year and change so much in year. Obviously, if you evolved so much in 10 months, then hopefully in the next 10 or 12 months we can go a step further and get more confidence and more strings in our bow. That will only come with time. But we thought before this game that we were really in with a chance. We really thought so, but on the day the Scarlets totally outplayed us.”

Assessing the province’s performance, full-back Simon Zebo admitted: “We got blitzed. We knew what was coming. Bad decisions in both attack and defence. I think the occasion got to us. We put the hand up, the Scarlets were the better team today.

“It was the same a couple of years ago against Glasgow (in the 2015 final), they attacked us from the start and left us a mountain to climb. We weren’t able to climb it, but we’ll learn from it hopefully.

“Hopefully in the future, the players will grow mentally more than anything. It’s the big occasions, the big days, making sure we play to our full potential. We’ve lost a couple of those opportunities. Hopefully we’ll grow and learn from them now. There were a lot of mistakes in both attack and defence. Our defence has been incredibly all year and we leave in three or four tries in the first half.”