Llanelli looking for Euro windfall

LLANELLI SCARLETS anticipate a minimum £1.5m windfall if they become the first Welsh team to be crowned European champions.

Llanelli head to Leicester on Saturday for a Heineken Cup semi-final with the treble-chasing Tigers, having already emphatically underlined their title credentials.

The Scarlets have won all seven of their matches in this season’s tournament, knocking out champions Munster and gaining stunning away victories over Toulouse, Ulster and London Irish. And such outstanding form means they have every chance of preventing an English club regaining the trophy despite the presence of three semi finalists in Leicester, Wasps and Northampton.

Llanelli have failed on two previous occasions in the penultimate round of European club rugby’s Premier competition. But Scarlets chief executive Stuart Gallacher believes the current crop of players are perhaps better equipped than any of their predecessors to be the full distance and secure silverware.

Gallacher said: “It won’t do our bank balance any harm to get to the final and win it. In terms of hard cash, you are probably talking somewhere around £1.5m in terms of winning it, which is something you obviously dream of.”

A Heineken Cup final triumph would also be worth an additional significant sum in terms of commercial and merchandising spin-offs, although there is no danger of Llanelli counting their chickens given they have to get past Leicester first and then probably Wasps, who have won the competition on three previous occasions between them.