The West Wales region followed the Ospreys in booking a place in next season’s European Rugby Champions Cup with a 17-13 win in Italy. With the result came sixth place and an automatic place in next season’s pool stage.
The Scarlets have never failed to qualify for the top-tier tournament, though Owens was fearful he would be the first captain to fall short. But a weight was lifted at the final whistle.
He said: “We’ve had an indifferent season and it means everything to this region to be in Europe and I’m just glad we’ve done it. It’s been weighing on my mind the last couple of weeks. I didn’t want to be the first captain not to make it.”
The West Walians had to come from behind after tries from Davide Giazzon and Jayden Hayward gave Treviso a 13-3 lead at the interval. But Liam Williams and Steffan Evans raced over in the second-half to claw the deficit back, with departing fly-half Rhys Priestland kicking seven points on his final outing in Scarlet.
Head Coach Wayne Pivac said: “We wanted to qualify under our own steam really. Winning by one or 20 it didn’t really bother us, it was a matter of getting the result. You’d like to get a nice 80 minutes but our season was replicated over that 80 today.”
“We made it hard for ourselves. We didn’t control the ball, turned too much ball over again. However, we got the points when we needed to and got the result.
“We kept an eye on the other results during the game but we wanted to win it. The boys stuck at it and got the result.”
