United Rugby Championship: Stormers 52-7 Scarlets - Hosts hit visitors with eight tries

Kieran Hardy scored Scarlets' only try

A brutal week for Scarlets in South Africa ended with another heavy defeat, this time against Stormers.

After shipping nine tries to the Bulls in Pretoria, they conceded a further eight in Stellenbosch.

Kieran Hardy offered a brief glimmer of hope with an opportunist first-half score that was converted by Ioan Lloyd.

However, the visitors had little answer to the Stormers' speed and this loss meant they had conceded 114 points in the space of only seven days.

Against the Bulls it was the sheer brute force of the South African forwards that made the difference, but against Stormers, it was the pace and guile of the backs with which Scarlets could not cope.

Those attributes were embodied by Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who had a spell as a teenager in the Scarlets' heartland of Llandovery College and has been touted as a future Springboks star.

Here he scored a try, created three more and kicked four conversions in a man-of-the-match display.

Scarlets lost wing Tom Rogers to a leg injury before kick-off and were left fuming when centre Joe Roberts was forced off from a suspected high tackle by Ben Loader after six minutes.

'No camera angles'

However, television match official Mike Adamson could be heard telling referee Sam Grove-White he did "not have the camera angles" to review the incident.

The game was being staged at the Stormers' second home at Danie Craven Stadium, away from their usual Cape Town base.

While Roberts was being assessed, Stormers surged ahead with two tries by flanker Marcel Theunissen.

Scarlets cut the deficit to 12-7 when Hardy squeezed over from a quickly taken penalty after Rogers' replacement Ioan Nicholas almost scored from Jonathan Davies' kick.

However having conceded a bonus point after 24 minutes in the record 63-21 defeat to Bulls last week, they held out for just five minutes longer here.

Hardy denied Theunissen a hat-trick, but the scrum-half's opposite number Paul de Wet darted over before fly-half Clayton Blommetjies got the bonus from a length-of-the-field attack that was just too easy from the Scarlets' viewpoint.

Loader rubbed salt into the wound with a fifth before half-time while De Wet grabbed a second two minutes into the second half.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu got the score his performance deserved before replacement Courtnall Skosan brought up the half century.

Scarlets at least rallied in the final moments but still could not find the consolation of a second try.

Scarlets head coach Dwayne Peel said: "We were out-muscled, it was as simple as that. We were in the game for the first 15 to 20 minutes but errors cost us and we were punished through their power.

"Physically we just weren't at the races and we just couldn't hold on.

"We've had two heavy losses. This is the first time a lot of these players have been to South Africa and we have to tale the learnings, rather than any positives."

Stormers: Warrick Gelant; Ben Loader, Ruhan Nel, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Leolin Zas; Clayton Blommetjies, Paul de Wet; Ali Vermaak. Joseph Dweba, Neethling Fouche (capt), Adre Smith, Ruben van Heerden, Marcel Theunissen, Hacjivah Dayimani, Evan Roos.

Replacements: Andre-Hugo Venter, Sti Sithole, Brok Harris, Gary Porter, Ben-Jason Dixon, Nama Xaba, Herschel Jantjies, Courtnall Skosan.

Scarlets: Johnny McNicholl; Ioan Nicholas, Joe Roberts, Jonathan Davies (capt), Ryan Conbeer; Ioan Lloyd, Kieran Hardy; Kemsley Mathias, Shaun Evans, Sam Wainwright, Alex Craig, Morgan Jones, Taine Plumtree, Dan Davis, Carwyn Tuipulotu.

Replacements: Isaac Young, Wyn Jones, Harri O'Connor, Jac Price, Ben Williams, Archie Hughes, Charlie Titcombe, Eddie James.

Referee: Sam Grove-White (SRU)

Assistant referees: Griffin Colby & Christopher Allison (SARU)

TMO: Mike Adamson (SRU)