Celtic League matches/Connacht - 15 Llanelli Scarlets - 37: No two ways about it, Llanelli deservedly completed a productive week with their second Magners League win in four days. Clever management of their squad, and the impact of some high-calibre replacements underlined the significant contrast in strength in depth.
That though, was only part of the story. On a lovely, sun-kissed, almost windless night in Galway an expectant 1,765 crowd were kept quiet for long stretches by the control Llanelli established - at scrum time, in the collisions and at the breakdown.
A poor Scottish referee, Graeme Hannah, along with his Irish touch judges, seemed to mostly have eyes for Connacht offences, and Llanelli will rarely enjoy such largesse with forward passes, fringing and midfield encroachment. But they were vastly the better team, and in the first half especially put the ball through the hands with far more alacrity than Connacht.
Connacht clung on gamely, John Muldoon, Colm Rigney, Chris Keane defending particularly solidly around the fringes, but they needed to maximise all their opportunities and instead Mark McHugh missed his first couple of kicks. The introduction of Dwayne Peel gave Llanelli greater direction, the arrival of Alix Popham gave them go-forward ballast, and Regan King added a whole new dynamism to the midfield exchanges, not just with his late brace of tries.
The home side also needed to have all their frontliners, but Stephen Knoop pulled out with a back strain, joining Connacht's other first-choice prop, Ray Ward, on the sidelines. Connacht could ill-afford such a blow, and despite the tactical introduction of captain John Fogarty - back from his post-Churchill Cup pre-season - as early as the 32nd minute, their scrum creaked under pressure. By then they'd also lost influential midfield playmaker Paul Warwick.
By then, the force was already firmly with Llanelli, although after Stephen Jones had opened the scoring, Matt Mostyn missed a 37-metre penalty before Connacht briefly struck the front. Conor McPhillips, their backline trump card, came across from his wing to to take McHugh's skip pass at pace, cut the Llanelli defence open and time his pass perfectly for Mostyn to score.
McHugh missed the difficult conversion and within two minutes Llanelli ominously struck back. The Scarlets' fullback Ceiron Thomas hit the line to create an overlap from a multi-phase attack and put flyer Darren Daniel over for his fifth try of the campaign.
Llanelli camped in Connacht territory, controlling the leather and constantly probing a diligent but hard-working home defence. Trying to make something out of rare ball inside their own 10-metre line, Connacht were guilty of crossing and Jones extended the lead before converting a close-range try by Simon Easterby, capping a big game, wide out after some clever close-in blocking. Here though, the origin of Connacht's problems was their scrum.
Connacht were increasingly living off crumbs, although at least a rumble off the restart by John Muldoon led to a McHugh penalty under the posts for offside and an interval deficit of 20-8; fair enough at that point.
Whatever Michael Bradley and the Connacht think tank said at half-time, Connacht came out with renewed hunger for the resumption, and also played with much more tempo. A well-worked training ground move had Chris Keane looping around a dummy pod of three forwards to line with his deeper-lying back line, good hands and Mostyn hitting the line to send Keith Matthews scampering up the touchline.
Alas, his looping pass inside just short of the line couldn't locate Mostyn and Llanelli also survived a bout of close-in, head-down drives after McHugh had breached the Scarlets when perhaps Connacht were guilty of a little white-line fever.
Illogically, they came back into the game at a time when they were generating little, as McHugh gambled and picked off Stephen Jones's pass to King, and though well inside his own 10-metre line made it all the way to the posts to simplify his own conversion.
Llanelli, following a pattern to the night, responded clinically, and after a backrow move off a scrum after Popham put them on the front foot, King exploited an inviting gap outside Gavin Williams to score.
Connacht still had their moments, but typical of the night, big breaks by replacements Danny Riordan, another home-grown product, and John Hearty either side of a huge lineout rumble by the pack died for lack of support.
Instead, as so often happens, the superior force were rewarded late on as King sliced through to seal the bonus point and firmly put paid to Connacht having any notions of even that much themselves.
Symptomatic of the difference on the night too, in contrast to Mostyn's two from four kicks, Jones completed a 17-point haul with his seventh kick out of seven.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 3 mins: S Jones pen 0-3; 8: Mostyn try 5-3; 10: Daniel try, S Jones con 5-10; 24: S Jones pen 5-13; 40: Easterby try, S Jones con 5-20; 40(+3): McHugh pen 8-20; (half-time 8-20); 55: S Jones pen 8-23; 59: McHugh try and con 15-23; 63: King try, S Jones con 15-30; 78: King try, S Jones con 15-37.
CONNACHT: M Mostyn; C McPhillips, P Warwick, G Williams, K Matthews; M McHugh, C Keane; B Wilkinson, A Flavin, B Sturgess; D Gannon, A Farley; J Muldoon, M Lacey, C Rigney. Replacements: John Hearty for Warwick (29 mins), J Fogarty for Flavin (32 mins), M Diffley for Wilkinson (57 mins), D Riordan for Matthews (60 mins), B O'Connor for C Rigney (62 mins), T Tierney for Keane (67 mins), M Swift for Diffley (77 mins).
LLANELLI SCARLETS: C Thomas; D James, M Watkins, G Evans, D Daniel; S Jones, C Stuart-Smith; P John, M Rees, D Manu; A Jones, S Macleod; J Bater, S Easterby (capt), N Thomas. Replacements: D Peel for Stuart-Smith (46 mins), M Jones for Daniel (55 mins), I Thomas for John, A Popham for N Thomas, R King for Evans (all 57 mins), K Owens for M Rees, I Afeaki for Easterby (both 78 mins).
Referee: Graeme Hannah (SRU).
