The United Rugby Championship’s Welsh Shield isn’t precisely something that will be paraded in the clubhouse in years to come.
Seven weekends boasting at least one Welsh derby per round to end the season ought to haveactually been accompanied by play-off presses. Alas, with simply a coupleof videogames to go, that’s looking notlikely.
The Scarlets harbour slim play-off hopes, sitting 5 points behind 8th location, merely waiting for the Vodacom Bulls or Edinburgh to slip up.
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However, while Dwayne Peel’s side would like to be looking up at reaching the play-offs and putting together a repeat of their 2017 accomplishment, the truth that the Welsh Shield isn’t sewn up suggests they still have to keep one eye looking over their shoulder.
With each of the Welsh sides outdoors the leading 8, topping the Welsh Shield endsupbeing the automated path into Champions Cup rugby. Right now, the Scarlets are in control of that – leading the Ospreys by 9 points.
The Swansea-based side have 3 videogames to go rather than 2, however regardless of the additional match in hand, their possibilities of surpassing the Scarlets are rather slim offered their persistent absence of benefit points. Perhaps mostimportantly, in a twist that might make things fascinating, is that the 2 sides face each other this weekend.
Were the Ospreys to beat the Scarlets at the Swansea.com Stadium, then the space might be as little as 4 points inbetween the 2 groups. Were that the case, the pendulum may simply threaten to swing a little in the Ospreys’ favour.
Then it would come down to the groups’ encounters. The Scarlets will just have the Stormers to come on the 21 May. That’s rather a wait if their Welsh Shield fate was still undetermined.
As for the Ospreys, they’ll have played their last 2 matches priorto the Scarlets surface their season. They host the Dragons on May 8, priorto inviting the Bulls to Swansea on May 20.
Quite merely, this weekend’s derby, the veryfirst west Wales face-off in Swansea consideringthat 2019, might either inject some late jeopardy into the Welsh Shield or enable the Scarlets a last-gasp fracture at gate-crashing the play-offs.
For Peel, that pressure of competing for Champions Cup credentials and a possible play-off location is something he’s takingpleasurein.
“We’re undoubtedly looking at the Welsh Shield as well, we desire to be the top Welsh group, and by doing that it provides us possibly a fracture at the play-offs,” he stated last week. “We can’t manage a slip up in either of those obstacles actually.
“It’s huge; great pressure on the videogame and pressure on us as a group, which is what we desire, we desire to be under pressure going into videogames.”
As for the Ospreys, the possibility of dragging their closest competitors back a bit in order to pass them will be an luring one. Lock Will Griffiths grew up viewing the Boxing Day derbies so it indicates that little bit more to him
“This videogame utilized to be constantly on Boxing Day and my birthday is on Christmas Day and going to this videogame was a routine celebration time for me.
“We utilized to go and watch the videogame and then all go back to mine and there are some actually great memories when I was moreyouthful.”
“To lastly get to play in one in front of crowd will be quite unique. I neverever idea I would get the opportunity to play in the derby.
“I neverever idea that would occur. The Scarlets is the terrific competition.”
Come Saturday night, the Welsh Shield may be covered up and the Scarlets will be looking up to see if anybody permits them to nick into the play-offs.
Or, it simply may be up for grabs if the Ospreys have anything to do with it. It’s not rather the straight shootout for Champions Cup rugby the 2 sides had in 2019, however it may simply be the mostsignificant Welsh derby we’ve seen consideringthat then.
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