{"id":356440,"date":"2011-04-01T06:40:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T06:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/"},"modified":"2011-04-01T06:40:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T06:40:33","slug":"davies-wants-scarlets-improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/","title":{"rendered":"Davies wants Scarlets improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div readability=\"138.78567431449\">\n                    <!-- empty related-stories for Wide --><\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Venue:<\/em> Ravenhill<\/li>\n<li><em>Date:<\/em> Friday, 1 April<\/li>\n<li><em>Kick-off:<\/em> 1905 BST<\/li>\n<li><em>Coverage:<\/em> Live on BBC TWO Wales, BBC NI &#038; online and score updates on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Sport website<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><span><br \/>\n  <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg.jpg\" width=\"226\" height=\"282\" alt=\"Nigel Davies\" \/><\/p>\n<p>    Davies is looking to get the Scarlets into the play-offs for the first time<br \/>\n  <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Coach Nigel Davies hopes the Scarlets&#8217; unconvincing win over Benetton Treviso is the wake-up call his side need for their Magners League clash in Ulster.<\/p>\n<p>The west Wales region stuttered to a 22-16 victory over Treviso and failed to secure a four-try bonus point.<\/p>\n<p>But Davies is hoping for marked improvement in Ravenhill on Friday as they bid for a play-off spot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be honest Sunday against Treviso wasn&#8217;t a bad thing for us&#8230; it&#8217;s given everyone a kick,&#8221; said Davies. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We came away with the win, but know we didn&#8217;t do ourselves justice against Treviso and we&#8217;ve been very hard on ourselves this week, we&#8217;ll have to pick up our levels by at least three notches.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Davies was particularly concerned about the Scarlets&#8217; inability to keep possession against the Italians.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our turnover rate &#8230; was up to 50% against Treviso which is just simply not good enough. We need at least half that to be successful on Friday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is a crunch game in play-off terms with Scarlets occupying sixth position, but they are just five points adrift of Ulster in third.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is going to be a lot of key areas &#8211; the contact area is absolutely vital when you play the Irish teams and we have been reasonably good there against them this year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Weather conditions will play a big factor, they normally do in Ravenhill.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And our accuracy. We are at our best when we are playing the style of rugby that we like to play &#8211; high ball in play time. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a big challenge, Ulster are a good side and they have had rode their luck recently, but all we can do is focus on ourselves.<\/p>\n<div>\n           <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/sport2\/hi\/rugby_union\/12924237.stm#skip_feature_02\">Continue reading the main story<\/a><\/p>\n<table>\n<colgroup>\n<col width=\"25%\" \/>\n<col width=\"25%\" \/>\n<col width=\"25%\" \/>\n<col width=\"25%\" \/><\/colgroup>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>\n<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\tPl\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\tW\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\tPts\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tMunster\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t18\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t15\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t67\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tLeinster\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t18\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t12\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t55\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tUlster\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t18\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t12\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t55\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tOspreys\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t18\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t11\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t55\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tBlues\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t17\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t11\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t50\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tScarlets\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t18\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t10\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t50\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\tDragons\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t17\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t7\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t34\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tfoot>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tfoot>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;We need to secure our own possession and then we have a game we can build. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The contact area is always important against the Irish sides and our turnover rate has to be low because of our intent to play.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great to play an open and expansive style of rugby, but we&#8217;re expecting our backs to be equally efficient in the contact areas as our forwards in order to get anything out of Friday&#8217;s game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It will be a difficult brief for the Welsh region. Not only are Ulster &#8211; along with leaders Munster &#8211; the form team in the Magners with 22 points from their last six matxches, but the Scarlets have lost their last four away matches.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Scarlets have not beaten an Irish province in their last five attempts and have not won in Ireland since a successful mission to Connacht in January 2009.<\/p>\n<p>However, one statistic is in the visitors&#8217; favour &#8211; Ulster have never done the league double over the Scarlets.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ulster: <\/strong>A D&#8217;Arcy; A Trimble, N Spence, P Wallace, S Danielli; I Humphreys, R Pienaar; T Court, R Best (capt), BJ Botha, J Muller, D Tuohy, R Diack, W Faloon, P Wannenburg.<strong>Replacements:<\/strong> A Kyriacou, P McAllister, D Fitzpatrick, T Barker, C Henry, P Marshall, I Whitten, C Gilroy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scarlets: <\/strong>Rhys Priestland; Gareth Maule, Regan King, Jon Davies, Morgan Stoddart; Stephen Jones, Tavis Knoyle; Iestyn Thomas, Matthew Rees (capt), Rhys Thomas, Lou Reed, Rob McCusker, Josh Turnbull, Johnathan Edwards, Ben Morgan.<strong>Replacements:<\/strong> Emyr Phillips, Rhodri Jones, Peter Edwards, Aaron Shingler, David Lyons, Martin Roberts, Daniel Evans, Scott Williams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Referee: <\/strong>Graham Knox (Scotland).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg-150x150.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>See more here:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/go\/rss\/-\/sport1\/hi\/rugby_union\/12924237.stm\" title=\"Davies wants Scarlets improvement\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Davies wants Scarlets improvement<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Venue: Ravenhill Date: Friday, 1 April Kick-off: 1905 BST Coverage: Live on BBC TWO Wales, BBC NI &#038; online and score updates on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Sport website Davies is looking to get the Scarlets into the play-offs for the first time Coach Nigel Davies hopes the Scarlets&#8217; unconvincing win over Benetton Treviso is the wake-up call his side need for their Magners League clash in Ulster. The west Wales region stuttered to a 22-16 victory over Treviso and failed to secure a four-try bonus point. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Davies wants Scarlets improvement - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Davies wants Scarlets improvement - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Venue: Ravenhill Date: Friday, 1 April Kick-off: 1905 BST Coverage: Live on BBC TWO Wales, BBC NI &amp; online and score updates on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Sport website Davies is looking to get the Scarlets into the play-offs for the first time Coach Nigel Davies hopes the Scarlets&#039; unconvincing win over Benetton Treviso is the wake-up call his side need for their Magners League clash in Ulster. The west Wales region stuttered to a 22-16 victory over Treviso and failed to secure a four-try bonus point.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"Davies wants Scarlets improvement\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-01T06:40:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/\"},\"wordCount\":628,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/\",\"name\":\"Davies wants Scarlets improvement - Ghanamma.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-01T06:40:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/9bcf5796huw226x282.jpg.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/\",\"name\":\"Ghanamma.com\",\"description\":\"News In Ghana - Latest Ghana News Headlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Davies wants Scarlets improvement - Ghanamma.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/01\/davies-wants-scarlets-improvement\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Davies wants Scarlets improvement - Ghanamma.com","twitter_description":"Venue: Ravenhill Date: Friday, 1 April Kick-off: 1905 BST Coverage: Live on BBC TWO Wales, BBC NI & online and score updates on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Sport website Davies is looking to get the Scarlets into the play-offs for the first time Coach Nigel Davies hopes the Scarlets' unconvincing win over Benetton Treviso is the wake-up call his side need for their Magners League clash in Ulster. 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