Skipper Willemse disappointed but says his side will iron out expensive mistakes Disappointed Southern Kings captain Michael Willemse says his team must bounce back after they were thumped 57-10 by the Scarlets in their Pro14 debut in Wales. Despite the one-sided scoreline at Parc y Scarlets arena in Llanelli, Willemse feels the hastily assembled Kings have the ability to regroup against Connacht in Galway on Saturday.
But Willemse admitted errors were made and that the Kings needed to go back to the drawing board before the Connacht clash. At half time, the Kings were still in the game, but they were blown away by a powerful second-half display by the Scarlets, who scored 42 unanswered points. South African teams made their Pro14 debut on Friday, when the Cheetahs were beaten 42-19 by Ulster in Belfast. Things had looked promising early on for the Kings when wing Yaw Penxe scored a try which allowed his team to take a 7-5 lead after Kurt Coleman converted. Scarlets, the defending champions, led 15-10 at the break against the South African new boys. While Kings head coach Deon Davids had to scramble to assemble a team after the late inclusion of his side, the Scarlets were able to field a settled combination packed with internationals. The home team were relentless after half time and outscored the Kings by eight tries to one in front of 9 108 fans. Though the scoreboard had a lopsided look to it when referee Frank Murphy blew the final whistle, the crowd were treated to an entertaining spectacle with the Kings never short on endeavour. Davids had warned that things could hardly get worse going forward after playing the champions in the opener and his assessment proved to be correct. Willemse said: “Ja, we are a little bit disappointed about that result. We will have to go back to the drawing board. “You can see they have had a good preseason and we have a lot to work on. I don’t think they played particularly better than us.
“We have to iron out those little silly errors like knock-ons here and there. The Scarlets were good at capitalising on those. “They have a brilliant back three and they really punished us when we knocked on in the middle. “The Kings will have to iron out those things and the finer details. I believe in my boys and I really think we will be able to bounce back from this one. “We will be putting out everything against Connacht and hopefully we will bounce back and show what we are truly made of,” Willemse said. The Scarlets were keen to keep the ball alive throughout the contest and there were a brace of tries for man-ofthe-match Johnny McNichol. British and Irish Lions star Leigh Halfpenny scored one of the Scarlets’ eight tries and kicked nine points on his debut as the title holders eased home. After first-half tries from McNicholl and Halfpenny, the Scarlets piled on the misery for the Kings with Rhys Patchell, Jake Ball, Emyr Phillips, Hadleigh Parkes, McNicholl and Steff Evans all crossing the whitewash. The Kings now face a Connacht side who were left licking their wounds after slipping to a 18-12 defeat to Glasgow Warriors in a wet and windy Galway on Saturday.