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Dai Young makes winning start as Cardiff Blues triumph at Scarlets

By PA
(Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)

Cardiff Blues interim director of rugby Dai Young celebrated his return to the region after a 10-year absence with a 13-10 win over the Scarlets in Llanelli.

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The result completed a quickfire double over their host, having beaten them 29-20 at the Cardiff City Stadium only a fortnight ago.

However, Young missed a lot of the action as a serious road traffic accident on the M4 delayed his arrival until midway through the first half.

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Matthew Morgan scored the Blues’ try, with Jarrod Evans adding a conversion and two penalties.

Blade Thomson responded with a try for Scarlets, while Leigh Halfpenny kicked a penalty and a conversion.

Scarlets dominated early possession and territory, but a malfunctioning line-out prevented them from capitalising and they were made to pay when the Blues scored the first try after 14 minutes.

The visitors built up a period of pressure but did not appear threatening until a delightful off-load from Evans gave Morgan the chance to race away and score a try on his 100th appearance for the region.

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Two minutes later the Blues suffered a blow when their captain, Cory Hill, left the field with a leg injury to be replaced by Rory Thornton.

However, with the Scarlets continually making handling errors and conceding penalties, the visitors were able to overcome the setback of losing Hill by extending their lead through a simple penalty from Evans to give his side a deserved 10-0 interval lead.

A high tackle from Evans on Scarlets centre Johnny Williams gave the home side the chance to dominate the opening period of the second half and they were rewarded when Halfpenny kicked a penalty to put them on the scoreboard.

Scarlets then introduced Ken Owens for his first game since injuring his shoulder at Glasgow back in October, but this was off-set with the loss of powerful number eight Sione Kalamafoni, who was led off in a dazed state after a heavy collision.

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The Blues also made substitutions, with long-term absentee Josh Navidi coming on at number eight, while Wales props Rhys Carre and Dillon Lewis also took the field in time to see Evans kick his second penalty.

The home side looked to have scored their first try when a cross-field kick from Dan Jones resulted in replacement Angus O’Brien seizing on the loose ball to touch down, but TMO replays showed that Johnny McNicholl had impeded Morgan.

However, Scarlets persisted with their cross-field kicks and it paid dividends when Thomson latched on to one from Steff Hughes to collect and score.

Halfpenny converted but that was as close as the Scarlets got, with a late yellow card for scrum-half Kieran Hardy not helping their cause.

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Nickers 30 minutes ago
The changes Scott Robertson must make to address All Blacks’ bench woes

Hopefully Robertson and co aren't applying this type of thinking to their selections, although some of their moves this year have suggested that might be the case.


The first half of Foster's tenure, when he was surrounded by coaches who were not up to the task, was disastrous due to this type of reactionary chopping and changing. No clear plan of the direction of travel or what needs to be built to get there. Just constant tinkering. A player gets dropped one week, on the bench the next, back to starting the next, dropped for the next week again. Add in injuries and other variations of this selection pattern, combined with vastly different game plans from one week to the next and it's no wonder the team isn't clicking on attack and are making incredibly basic errors on both sides of the ball.


When Schmidt and Ryan got involved selections became far more consistent and the game plan far simpler and the dividends were instant, and they accepted bad performances as part of building towards the world cup. They were able to distinguish between bad plans and bad execution and by the time the finals rolled around they were playing their best rugby as a team.


Chopping and changing the team each week sends the signal that you don't really know what you are doing or why, and you are just reacting to what happened last week, selecting a team to replay the previous game rather than preparing for the next one and building for the future.

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