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Scarlets sweep second half to dismiss Zebre in Llanelli

By PA
Scarlets' Sam Costelow (Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

Scarlets secured a third successive win in the United Rugby Championship by beating Zebre Parma 30-8 in Llanelli.

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Tries from Tom Rogers, Macs Page, Blair Murray and captain Josh Macleod helped Scarlets recover from Ben Cambriani’s early score for the Italians to earn the bonus point.

Buoyed by snapping a five-match losing run at Parc y Scarlets when beating Bulls in round five, Scarlets took an early lead through Ioan Lloyd’s penalty.

But Zebre, on a run of three successive defeats, fought back to take an 8-6 lead courtesy of Geronimo Prisciantelli’s drop goal and Cambriani’s try from Giovanni Montemauri’s superb kick.

Lloyd’s second penalty reduced the deficit to two points and Scarlets then moved back in front when Rogers went over in the corner following a slick move for an 11-8 half-time lead.

Two tries in the opening six minutes of the second half saw Scarlets surge ahead, with Page first bursting clear of the Zebre defence and leaving them trailing in his wake, Lloyd adding the extras.

Murray then went over shortly afterwards after a terrific team move and Macleod crossed for a fourth try from close range after a maul following sustained Scarlets pressure, Lloyd converting the latter.

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Zebre, who have failed to win away from home in the competition since January 2021, rarely threatened to add to their tally.

Scarlets comfortably saw the game out to extend their unbeaten run against Zebre to 18 games, winning 17 of them, while also registering a third win in a row in the URC for the first time since February 2023.

Louis Rees-Zammit joins Jim Hamilton for the latest episode of Walk the Talk to discuss his move to the NFL. Watch now on RugbyPass TV

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Flankly 1 hour ago
Four talking points after a 'bonkers' England loss to Australia

On the face of it the England rush defence seemed to be worse this week than last. I thought the line speed last week was very effective against NZ, and that the NZ tries had to be very well worked to get around or through. But in fact the apparent deterioration of the England defence may have been more about Schmidt learning from the NZ game. Australia were quick about getting the ball outside of the midfield defenders, and England struggled to cover it effectively. Suaailii was a key element of this. The Boks are going to test this next week, and if England don't address it we should see some Bok tries out wide.


The England attack was as expected, ie fairly ineffective, per last week. Smith is the exception. His magic was behind almost everything England did on attack. While it's great for England to have a player like this, the question is what will happen when an opponent targets him to minimize his impact. Can England win a game with their Plan B? We saw what happened in the 2019 RWC final when the Boks shut down George Ford.


More of a surprise was the England forward pack. This ought to be the area in which Bothwick excels. It is a traditional England strength, and Borthwick was a forward himself. And there is a lot of experience in that pack. So I thought Australia might be overwhelmed up front. But that's not really what happened. It's not obvious that the England pack is any more than average at the moment.


My conclusion this week is similar to last, namely that England has not solved its coaching problem. It looks very different for NZ and Australia - they both have coaching results that are looking quite good.

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