Simon Easterby and his side fly to Paris this afternoon for a meeting with the French giants who include Wales men Mike Phillips and Dan Lydiate in their side. Jamie Roberts misses out with injury.Â
When the two sides met at Parc y Scarlets in October, they shared a 26-26 draw with Scott Williams and Rhodri Williams crossing for tries. After back to back defeats against the Ospreys over Christmas and New Year, Easterby will want his side to build some momentum ahead of the return to RaboDirect PRO12 action.
Easterby has made four changes from the side that took on the Ospreys at the Liberty Stadium last week with Aled Thomas replacing Gareth Owen at full back and Gareth Davies coming in at scrum half for Rhodri Williams. Davies will go head-to-head with Phillips, who will make his home debut for Racing against the club where he started his career.
In the pack, George Earle and Josh Turnbull make way for Johan Snyman and Aaron Shingler at second row and flanker respectively.
Easterby said: “I think it’s important we finish strongly – we started really well and we’d like to see us finish in the same way.
“The next two weeks are vital. First and foremost, we want to get some confidence back into the squad but we also need to get some momentum back into the season and get the winning run back again.
“We’ve contributed to our own downfall in the last three weeks. We’ve made too many errors, we’re not a million miles away but we have to win the tight games. We haven’t done that in the last few weeks. We do this first and foremost because we enjoy doing it and losing isn’t enjoyable.”
On the prospect of facing Racing Metro, who recently beat defending European champions Toulon, Easterby added: “Racing are a physical side – they’ve showed that at home they are a match for anyone. They’ve beaten Clermont at home recently and they have strength in depth in their squad.”
Rob McCusker leads the Scarlets tomorrow evening. He said: “We are desperate for a win – we’ve been making little errors at critical times.
“We can only play what’s in front of us on the day but we’re looking for an away victory this Friday. Racing could click at any time but we can’t go into our shells. We’ve played some of our best rugby when we’ve been off the cuff but we’ve got a lot of things in place to get us into the areas that we can play.
“I don’t think we’ve got anything to fear on the back of the last couple of weeks’ performances.”
