SCARLETS 15 – 21 CARDIFF RUGBY
Three well-controlled driving lineout drives earned Cardiff Rugby bragging rights in the first Welsh regional derby of the new BKT United Rugby Championship against Scarlets.
Dan Thomas, Taine Basham and finally Evan Lloyd grabbed the tries as Cardiff left Parc y Scarlets with four points and another victory to follow up their triumph in Llanelli last season.
The Scarlets drew first blood when international centre Joe Roberts dived over in the sixth minute and Blair Murray added a second in the 23rd. Gareth Anscombe converted the latter.
Callum Sheedy improved first half tries from Thomas and Basham to give the visitors a 14-12 lead, but the home side edged back in front 15-14 after Joe Hawkins kicked a penalty in the 52nd minute.
It was still anyone’s game, and it took a marginal decision to take the game away from the Scarlets when a Murray clearance kick was deemed to have grazed the touchline. That denied the Scarlets what would have been an attacking platform.
Instead, it gave Cardiff the chance to launch an attack of their own and it eventually led to the winning score from Lloyd.
“I’d say we weren’t exactly pleased with our performance, but we’re pleased with the result,” explained ‘Player of the Match’ Taine Basham.
“You come down here and want the players excited and playing good rugby, but unfortunately with it being a derby, it didn’t quite work out like that. But the sign of a good team is to play each game, stay in it and get a result.
“We can’t complain with four points away from home, but we need to be better. The most exciting thing is we’re at the Arms Park on Friday against Zebre and we can put those wrongs right.”
It was the sixth game in a row in the URC that the Scarlets have failed to win – they drew with the Dragons at home on the last day of the 2025-26 regular season – and their fifth at Par y Scarlets without success.
“In the first 30 minutes we looked like the team we want to be, but then some errors started creeping into our game. Cardiff took their tries well, but they didn’t really have to work for them,” said Scarlets’ director of rugby Nigel Davies.
“It was more about our errors giving them three entries into our 22 and they scored from three lineouts. We lost a bit of energy as well, which was disappointing.
“The boys battled to the end. We exposed a lot of young players, and I thought in the main those boys did really well and will be better players for it.”