After the Scarlets had beaten La Rochelle last month to reach their first European Cup semi-final for 11 years, Phil Bennett closed his eyes and was transported back to Stradey Park, the ramshackle, resonant ground where he had made his name as a fly-half from the end of the 1960s when Carwyn James coached Llanelli, where style mattered as much as winning.
“The crowd started singing Yma o Hyd [We’re still here] and the hairs went up on the back of my neck,” recalls Bennett, the region’s president, who has a lounge at Parc y Scarlets named after him. “The atmosphere was as it used to be at Stradey and I was close to tears: not long ago I had almost given up on Welsh rugby when the union was constantly rowing with the regions, but the last year has been the making of the Scarlets, a league title and a European semi‑final achieved in a manner that would have made Carwyn very proud.”
The Scarlets moved out of Stradey in 2008 and the ground was turned into a housing estate. Their new stadium held 4,000 more spectators but it was rarely more than half full. “Some people never made the move here,” says Bennett, sitting in a café-bar at Parc y Scarlets that is open every weekday. “It took time to work but the region has never been in a healthier position: the kids, the lifeblood of any club, are coming back.
“A team ingrains itself in your soul when you are young. My father took me to Stradey Park when I was a small boy. I watched giants of the game and became a Scarlet forever. I still savour those days and matches I played there, not least the victory over the 1972 All Blacks, but we can move on now. The crowd stayed in their seats for some 15 minutes after the La Rochelle game, singing songs and applauding the players. Big men broke down. Parc y Scarlets was born.”
The Scarlets face Leinster in Dublin on Saturday in their fourth European Cup semi-final. Like Bennett, the region’s Wales wing Steff Evans was taken to Stradey Park as a young boy and fell in love with his hometown club. “When I was growing up, all youngsters wanted to do was play for the Scarlets,” he says.
“That is coming back, as you will hear if you go to any school in the area. I have never known a buzz about the town as there has been in the last few months. People are talking not just about the old days but a new era. It was not long ago that we were playing before small crowds because the rugby was not there, but thousands of supporters will be in Dublin and every week is a final for us.”
Bennett credits a New Zealander with the revival: Wayne Pivac, a former policeman and Auckland head coach who arrived in Llanelli in 2014 as forwards coach, put in charge six months later. “The history of this place is not lost on me and it was a reason I came here,” says Pivac. “So was the expansive game they play but it took a time to turn things around. Finance had a bit to do with it but, to be brutal, the environment was not that honest. Now no short cuts are being taken by anyone: we spend so much time together it has to be a home away from home. Everyone is treated the same: we mix old-fashioned values with good practices of the modern game. We are in it together.”
Pivac consulted a number of people who had coached in Wales before joining the Scarlets and received conflicting advice about whether to live locally or commute from Cardiff and avoid the goldfish bowl. “I live in Llanelli, by the beach,” he says. “People here are not shy and I chat to them in the supermarket, the petrol station, wherever. They have a passion for rugby and know a lot about it. No one has been rude. I do not hide away and prefer to update supporters rather than have rumours flying about. I have the same approach with the media. I am really enjoying living in Wales and feel part of the rugby fabric.”
To JJ Williams, who was part of the Llanelli side that defeated the All Blacks, Pivac is a contender to take over from Warren Gatland as Wales’s head coach after next year’s World Cup. “I used to think there was no heart and soul in regional rugby,” the former Wales and Lions wing says. “It is coming: the Scarlets are playing a good brand of rugby and so are Cardiff Blues, who have made the Challenge Cup semi-finals.
“The Scarlets are showing what can be achieved on a relatively small budget: I admire what the English clubs have achieved in growing the game there, but the rugby is not great in the Premiership. Supporters in Wales are more discerning: they want to be entertained and the Scarlets are doing that. Wales could do a lot worse than Wayne Pivac.”
The Welsh Rugby Union, which has drawn up a shortlist of three to succeed Gatland, has spoken to Pivac. “They sounded me out over a coffee and I assume they have done that with all the regional coaches,” he says. “There has been nothing formal and it is about how they see the future. I have signed on for another two years at the Scarlets, as have the other coaches here, and we enjoy what we are doing.
“Having 10 Scarlets in the Wales side that beat Scotland showed we are contributing to the game. We played some sublime rugby in the play-offs last season, but you cannot just throw the ball around. You have to have a platform and the way we fronted up at forward against La Rochelle and before them Toulon showed the character and determination of this group.”
The Scarlets are underdogs in Dublin, but they have been since losing their opening two pool matches and being within two minutes of going down to Treviso in the third. They finished by running Bath off the Recreation Ground and not flinching against Toulon’s muscle. “Bath supporters came up to me at the end and said they had not seen rugby like that for a long time,” says Bennett.
“I used to help with the marketing here but now the game the team is playing is selling itself. This is our breakthrough season. The emotion is back, we’re still here and Parc y Scarlets is our home now.”
