Ospreys force draw with last minute try

By ROGER PANTING

Scarlets …………23pts

Tries: Williams 53, Costelow 65

Conversions: Costelow 53, 65

Penalties: Costelow 14, 40, 44

Ospreys …………23pts

Tries: Anscombe 5, Griffiths 80

Conversions: Anscombe 5, Walsh 80

Penalties: Anscombe 9, 17, 47

A last-minute converted try from Ospreys' replacement Will Griffiths deprived Scarlets of a winning start to their 150th year celebrations.

Griffiths powered over from a driving lineout with young fly-half Jack Walsh holding his nerve to succeed with a touchline conversion.

It was rough justice on Scarlets, who had fought back from a 13-3 deficit with impressive ball-carrying performances from Johnny Williams and Sione Kalamafoni at the heart of their effort.

Scarlets head coach, Dwayne Peel said: “It's a tough one to take as we made three mistakes in the last three minutes, which cost us.

“However we were poor in the first half as we could have easily been 20-3 down at half-time but we upped the tempo and fought back really well.”

Scarlets lost a couple of early lineouts to concede field position and their opponents made it count when Keelan Giles raced away to provide Gareth Anscombe with an easy run-in.

The fly-half converted and added a penalty before Sam Costelow first missed with a 40m penalty before succeeding with an easier kick.

Anscombe kicked his second before Scarlets suffered two further blows in quick succession. First flanker, Tomas Lezana, left the field with a leg injury before Costelow was yellow-carded for a tiptackle on Justin Tipuric.

In Costelow's absence the pressure on the hosts' line was remorseless as they conceded numerous penalties.

However the referee was lenient with the issue of further cards and Scarlets, with some stubborn defence, were able to escape with no damage to the scoreboard.

In the last minute of the first half, Johnny McNicholl was felled by a challenge by Tipuric. McNicholl was pole-axed and the home crowd roared for a card but the referee was content with just a penalty which Costelow kicked to leave his side trailing 13-6 at the interval.

McNicholl failed to return after the interval with further penalties from Costelow and Anscombe additions to the scoreboard.

Then came the turning point. Giles was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on and Scarlets capitalised by drawing level when Williams ran strongly to beat off weak tackles from Nicky Smith and Scott Baldwin to score a splendid individual try. Giles returned in time to see Scarlets to take the lead for the first time when Costelow tore through a gap in a tiring Ospreys defence to score.

The hosts dominated the final period and Ospreys looked down and out until Kalamafoni was yellow carded for a deliberate knock-on with the visitors taking advantage to come away with two unlikely points.

Ospreys head coach, Toby Booth said: “We take a lot of pride in our effort to get a draw. For most of that final quarter, when we had to make so many tackles, I was hiding under the desk so it's huge credit that we were to work our way 80 metres up the field to score.

“We were in control for the first 30 minutes but then we made too mistakes, especially missing tackles from kick and chases.”