Cautious Elwood priming Connacht for Scarlets backlash
The Irish province will face a strong Scarlets side when they travel to Llanelli for tomorrow’s clash.
A week on from an embarrassing defeat at the Italian newcomers, the Welsh region have included Stephen Jones, Matthew Rees and Sean Lamont in their starting line-up for the first home game of the season at Parc y Scarlets.
“You have to expect a backlash and with our record over there they will probably be expecting to win by five points,” Elwood said.
“Conversely we are looking to improve our away form, we have set ourselves a good target for this week, that’s the challenge and we’re looking forward to it.”
Wales and Lions hooker Rees will lead the Scarlets in his new role as captain, which this week has seen he and head coach Nigel Davies take a strong line with the players this week after letting a win slip from their grasp in the dying minutes in Italy.
“It’s a very competitive environment here at the moment, which is what we wanted. I made it clear that this week would be the first time we would be not preclude anyone from selection and would pick our starting XV from the entire squad,” Davies said.
“First and foremost we have to win games and maybe in the past we’ve tried to win games playing pretty rugby but we don’t always need to do that – and if we were able to shut-up shop out in Italy we would have won,’’ Davies said.
“We weren’t able to do that last weekend – we have got to have a game that we can go to when there’s a change in momentum in matches.”
Against Connacht, Martin Roberts starts at scrum-half with Wales and Lions fly-half Stephen Jones joining him at half-back. Rhys Thomas returns at tighthead prop, last week’s captain Rob McCusker moves to number eight and Andy Fenby moves from wing to full-back.
After a brace of tries on his competitive debut last week, 18-year-old winger George North is rewarded with a place in a full-strength starting Scarlets XV, with Scottish international Lamont, Wales centre, Jon Davies and All Blacks centre Regan King for company.
Davies warned that despite a strong home record against Connacht, nothing could be taken for granted against a side that scored a convincing victory over Newport Gwent Dragons last week.
“Connacht are a good team, when you look what they did against the Dragons, they played very well. They are a very capable side. But this season, we must look less at the opposition and more about ourselves, our game and what we can bring. And we need to bring a strong defensive game and muscle-up more and that has been the focus for us this week after Treviso.”
Elwood has included new signing Darragh Fanning and Connacht Academy star Shane Conneely in his 25-man squad. Fanning impressed in pre-season against Harelquins and Saracens and is brought in as cover in the backline whilst back rower Conneely, 20, has a proven track record for Connacht at U18 & U20.
Former Queensland Reds number eight Ezra Taylor has been ruled out after suffering a knock to his knee against the Dragons.
A Fenby; G North, R King, J Davies, S Lamont; S Jones, M Roberts; P John, M Rees (capt), R Thomas; L Reed, J Fa’amatuainu; J Turnbull, J Edwards, R McCusker.
Replacements: K Owens, I Thomas, P Edwards, D Day, N Cudd, T Knoyle, G Maule, R Priestland.
Forwards: R Loughney, B Wilkinson, S Cronin, A Flavin, R Sweeney, J Hagan, D Nolan, M Swift, B Upton, M McCarthy, R Ofisa, M McComish, S Conneely.
Backs: C Willis, F Murphy, M Nikora, I Keatley, F Carr, K Matthews, N Ta’auso, T OHalloran, A Wynne, T Nathan, G Duffy, D Fanning.
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