First-half yellow cards cost us - Scarlets coach Wayne Pivac

18 January 2016 09:34

Scarlets head coach Wayne Pivac criticised his team for their indiscipline following Sunday afternoon's record 64-14 loss at Racing 92 in Pool Three of the European Champions Cup.

Two yellow cards in the first half reduced Scarlets to 13 men against the French league leaders at Stade Yves-du-Manoir, with Maselino Paulino and DTH van der Merwe shown yellow cards in quick succession.

And they were made to pay as they trailed 38-0 at the break en route to a nine-try defeat, including a Casey Laulala hat-trick.

Pivac said: "Discipline was a big part of the first half because 21 points were scored when we had men off the pitch and the game was pretty much over after that.

"It was only 10-0 when we had the first card but then 21 points came very quickly with men on the sidelines.

"Racing are a class team and very strong right across the field and it's a difficult enough task when you have 15 against 15, let alone when you take one and then two players off.

"That really hurt us but we have to concede that they were a lot stronger than us today."

Juan Imhoff, Bernard Le Roux and Louis Dupichot also touched down in the first half.

Scarlets briefly rallied in a bid to reduce the damage on the scoreboard with tries from Van der Merwe and Gareth Davies early in the second half.

But Imhoff claimed his second after the pack secured a penalty try and Johan Goosen and Laulala completed the rout .

Pivac said: "When you're trailing to a score like that at half-time, the most important thing is that you see a reaction and we certainly got that with a couple of tries straight after half-time.

"We spoke at half-time about trying to win the second half and putting some pride back in the jersey with a performance.

"There were some good things about our play. We scored a couple of nice tries and the score in the second half was 26-14. But the reality was that the game was already gone at half-time and that was very disappointing."

The result - Racing's biggest win in the tournament and Scarlets' heaviest defeat in Europe - sealed a home quarter-final tie for the French team.

Source: PA