WAYNE Pivac insists the Scarlets are still alive and fighting as they maintained their hopes of qualifying for next season's Heineken Champions Cup with a bonus point victory over Zebre in Llanelli.
After suffering a disappointing home defeat against Edinburgh last weekend the west Walians looked set to miss out on Europe next season for the first time in their history.
But with Richard Cockerill's side slipping up to Ulster on Friday night the Scarlets have an opportunity of playing a Champions Cup play-off should they beat the Dragons on Judgement Day and Edinburgh lose at Glasgow.
“Our qualification hopes are still alive,” said Pivac.
“We are playing for European qualification next year. We've been in the top echelon of European rugby every year and we want to maintain that record so that's a firm focus for us but also top three is mathematically still a goer.
You never say never and the results this week have shown that.”
In what was Pivac, Stephen Jones and Byron Hayward's last game before departing for Wales, Uzair Cassiem, Hadleigh Parkes, Johnny McNicholl, Kieran Hardy and Ioan Nicholas all crossed the whitewash to send them off from Llanelli on a winning note.
Leigh Halfpenny added 12 points from the kicking tee.
The Scarlets suffered an early scare when Zebre winger Paula Balekana raced clear towards the try line only to be denied by a last-ditch tackle from Gareth Davies.
After a quiet start Pivac's side began to build some pressure in the Zebre 22 and came close when the ball was spread wide only for Halfpenny to spill the ball forward with a man outside him.
But at the following scrum the Scarlets shoved Zebre off their own ball allowing former Springboks No 8 Cassiem to power his way over the line for the opening try.
The Scarlets scrum had their Italian counterparts on toast with tight-head prop Marco Ciccoli sent to the sin bin after being put under severe pressure from Wyn Jones.
They opted for another scrum before spreading the ball wide for outside-half Dan Jones to put Wales Grand Slam hero Parkes over to give the hosts a 14-0 lead at the interval.
Zebre frustrated the Scarlets in the first period of the second-half but the Scarlets finally broke into life with George Biagi sent to the sin bin for cynically killing the ball on the floor.
Cassiem grabbed his brace as he smashed his way through three Zebre defenders to seal the try bonus point.
But the Scarlets weren't finished as replacement scrum-half Hardy ran in unopposed from 65 metres for their fifth touch down.
After being stubborn opponents for the majority of the game Zebre's defence fell apart as Kieron Fonotia broke through before drawing his man to put Nicholas over to put the icing on the cake.
