European Champions Cup: Scarlets to learn from Leinster defeat - Pivac

Scott Williams (right) was dejected after defeat by Leinster in Dublin

Head coach Wayne Pivac says Scarlets will learn "a lot" from their crushing Champions Cup semi-final loss to Leinster.

Scarlets were beaten 38-16 at Dublin's Aviva Stadium on Saturday.

The Welsh side have lost all four of their European semi-finals, but Pivac believes they will soon be back in the latter stages of the competition.

"We've had a really good run to get where we have done," he said.

"We find ourselves in the top four of Europe so we've made a lot of improvements.

"But we've got to keep improving. The job is not done, clearly, but we'll go away from this and look at the areas we need to improve.

"There's a lot to learn from today's performance. There are some positives to take out of that."

Scarlets overwhelmed

Saturday's encounter was the Scarlets' first European semi-final since 2007 and, against such formidable opposition, they never looked like reaching the final for the first time in their history.

Leinster produced a complete team performance, overwhelming their opponents with a potent combination of power, pace and accuracy.

The one-sided contest was in stark contrast to their meeting in last season's Pro12 play-off semi-final, which Scarlets won 25-17 despite playing more than half the game with 14 men.

Leinster 'a different team' - Sexton

Leinster fly-half Johnny Sexton played in last year's defeat at the RDS and his imperious display at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday typified his team's improvement 12 months on.

"We did learn a few lessons," said the Ireland international. "I thought we looked like a different team to the semi-final last year.

"You need to play differently against the Scarlets. They've got 14 guys in their line on their feet and you've got to puncture holes in their line because you're never going to get around them.

"At times last year we tried to get around them and we got caught out. Today we picked our moments when we went wide a lot better.

"If we didn't have the calibre of ball carriers we had that wouldn't have worked, so in fairness to the forwards they fronted up time and again. And Robbie [Henshaw] - he was insane."