The Scarlets made light of a disastrous opening in which they conceded 17 points in 16 minutes to hit back and score six tries to beat the Ospreys 38-17 in the first of two key west Wales derbies.
This was in the BKT United Rugby Championship, and the five points the Scarlets picked up pushed them to within three points of the play-off places, while on Sunday 6 April they will do it all over again at the Swansea.Com Stadium in the Round of 16 in the EPCR Challenge Cup.
Both teams are now level on 33 points in 10th and 11th place respectively in URC with the five teams ahead of them still within striking distance.
The Ospreys got off to a blistering start with Morgan Morris scoring within 49 seconds of the start. Then full back Iestyn Hopkins get another after an awkward bounce.
Dan Edwards converted both and added a penalty to leave their fans believing they would see another win to extend a winning sequence over their arch-rivals stretching back to January 2022.
But the Scarlets hit back with six tries and made the most of yellow cards to hooker George McGuigan and scrum half Kieran Hardy that temporarily took the visitors down to 13 men.
The crowd of 11,384 also saw Vaea Fifita pick up a yellow card as the nine try thriller simply got better and better for the home side. In the end, Ospreys head coach Mark Jones, a former Scarlets favourite as a player, suffered only his second defeat in nine games in charge.
Tries from Wales full back Blair Murray and Fifita, as wel as a penalty try, enabled the Scarlets to battle back to 17-17 at the break and they went on to notch two more scores in the opening 10 minutes of the second half from international centres Joe Roberts and Eddie James to race into a 31-17 lead.
With the bonus point in the bag they kept pushing and picked up a sixth try through No 8 Taine Plumtree. Ioan Lloyd’s third conversion made it 38 unanswered points before his opposite number Edwards scampered over in the 77th minute for a consolation score for the visitors.