The side with an average age of just 21 pushed the Blues all the way at the BT Sport Arms Park but slipped to a 19-13 loss.
Scarlets could not hold on to a slim lead after Sion Bennett’s delicate chip was dotted down by flanker Sion Bennett. But Cunningham saw plenty of positives in the display – in which Ben Leung and Josh Adams made their debuts in the Scarlet shirt.
He said: “We’re very pleased on the whole with the young players and what they have produced in the opening two rounds.
“We set out to take the game to the Blues and I thought we did show that in patches but couldn’t quite close it out in the end.
“We were ecstatic that the try came off, fair play to Sion Bennett he switched on to it. At that stage we were hoping to kick on and needed that extra score in the end but it just didn’t come.”
The Parc y Scarlets side may well be much changed for Glasgow Warriors’ trip to Llanelli as the Guinness PRO12 returns on Friday.
But Cunningham reckons we could soon see the budding Scarlets at the top-level thanks to the Anglo-Welsh competition.
He said: “We had a very young front row in Ben Leung, Ryan Elias and Wyn Jones and I thought they did exceptionally well. This is exactly the learning curve they need to develop and move on in their careers.
“This experience will help them all massively as a collective. That’s what we wanted out of it. We were all disappointed not to get the win but it’s easy to see how much they’ve grown both individually and collectively over the last few weeks.”
