Scarlets suffer second heavy defeat of their South African doubleheader

Scarlets suffered a second heavy defeat on their South African swing as Marcel Theunissen and Paul de Wet both scored a pair of tries in a 52-7 victory for DHL Stormers in Stellenbosch.

The Welsh region have now conceded 115 points from their opening two United Rugby Championship games and will be relieved to get back to Llanelli next week, while their only score came from scrum-half Kieran Hardy.

Clayton Blommetjies, Ben Loader, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Courtnall Skosan also went in for tries for the South Africans.

Stormers dominated the early stages and they were rewarded after seven minutes when Scarlets were penalised for offside as they just held the South Africans at bay. Theunissen took a quick tap penalty and wriggled over under the posts.

Theunissen then helped himself to a second try shortly after when the Stormers’ rolling maul had Scarlets on the back foot and he controlled from the back to crash over.

Scarlets got themselves back into the game with an almost carbon copy of the first Stormers try when Hardy took a quick tap penalty to go in under the sticks.

But Stormers hit back and Theunissen broke the Scarlets line from a lineout win and as the ball was recycled, scrum-half De Wet squirmed over.

Bonus point

The bonus point was secured just short of half-time when a quick counter attack opened up Scarlets and Skosan drew in the tackler before flipping inside to Blommetjies to stroll in.

It was a lineout again that brought the fifth try with Feinberg-Mngomezulu breaking the line before playing inside to the supporting Loader to crash over.

De Wet claimed a second try early in the second half when too many missed tackles from Scarlets allowed him to dive over in the corner.

Stormers demonstrated their control with the try of the game on the hour-mark when quick hands took the ball left to right and they kept it alive beautifully to send it back the other way for Feinberg-Mngomezulu to stretch out a hand and touch down.

Skosan wrapped up the scoring when he went in for the Stormers’ eighth try of the afternoon late on.