SCARLETS suffered defeat in their latest Pro14 game as they were beaten 29-20 by the Cardiff Blues on Saturday, January 9.

The Blues went ahead early on at the Cardiff City Stadium as Jarrod Evans kicked over a penalty.

Eight minutes later the visitors were on the scoresheet as captain Jonathan Davies went over for his 50th try for the Scarlets. Leigh Halfpenny then added the extras.

However, just two minutes after taking the lead, the Blues were back in the lead as Willis Halaholo went over. Evans missed the conversion and the scored stayed at 8-7 to the home side.

Scarlets’ Gareth Davies was then given a yellow card for a deliberate knock on and Evans scored with the resulting penalty.

The visitors replied with a penalty of their own from Dan Jones.

Again though, having got themselves back into the game, the Scarlets allowed the Blues in to score their second try of the game, courtesy of Rey Lee-Lo and Evans kicked the conversion for an 18-10 lead.

Then came the game’s turning point as the Scarlets were reduced to 14 men just before half-time when wing Liam Williams was dismissed for what the officials deemed an illegal clearout at a ruck.

That gave the Scarlets an uphill task for the second half but they came out determined to make up the deficit.

Halfpenny added a penalty and then, after some good pressure, Sione Kalamafoni burst over to bring the scores level. Halfpenny added the extras to put the visitors into the lead.

Shortly after the hour mark Rhys Carre was shown a yellow card and the teams briefly played 14-a-side.

Five minutes later the Blues regained their lead as Tomos Williams went over for a try. Evans missed the conversion as the home side lead 23-20.

The score remained tight but in the final ten minutes, Cardiff made sure of the points as Evans kicked two penalties in the space of four minutes to seal the win.

Scarlets will now look to regroup ahead of their Heineken Champions Cup fixtures. They visit RC Toulon on Friday, January 15.

However, that game has been thrown into doubt after the French sports minister wrote to the National Rugby League asking for their games against British opponents to be postponed in order to lower the risk of catching the new variant of coronavirus.