Rugby Union: Llanelli carry the burden of expectation

AFTER the season they have had, in particular the nine-match tidal wave which swept them to the league title, Llanelli are overwhelming favourites to become the first Welsh double winners by beating Neath in this afternoon's Swalec Cup final at the Arms Park.

It is as predictable as most of Llanelli's results that this disparity of expectation suits Neath well - and the Scarlets' retiring coach, Gareth Jenkins, not at all. 'The complacency factor worries me,' he said. 'I'm very apprehensive.' He need not be if his players perform with anything like the mix of ruthlessness and elan, substance and style, which have characterised their rush to the championship.

The final 22-match aggregates of 136 tries and 901 points, astounding game averages of 6.2 and 41, may never be emulated - and this, for goodness sake, was in the league, where defences and negative thinking are supposed to dominate.

'I have already said that this is a better Llanelli side than in the 1970s and winning the cup could make them the greatest of all time,' Jenkins said - which, given that the side of the Seventies contained the likes of Phil Bennett, J J Williams, Ray Gravell and even a certain Gareth Jenkins, is as handsome a tribute as the coach could pay.

In fact his team have been reminiscent as much of the Neath of the late Eighties as the Llanelli of folklore, not in the manner of their play (which has been in the truest Scarlets tradition) but in the capacity to amass points and tries in huge numbers in game after game. Perhaps it is expecting too much for more of the same in a cup final but, as Jenkins pointed out, previous rounds were simply about winning; this one is about producing the rugby for which Llanelli are renowned.

All of which pays scant regard for Neath's chance, though they did finish a distant fourth behind Llanelli.

'In the end the final will be decided by whichever pack dominates; it will be won and lost up front,' Gareth Llewellyn, the Neath captain, said. As the Scarlets themselves have a handy pack containing half-a-dozen internationals, it is hard to imagine their relaxing or lapsing so badly as to lose.

What victory would prove is a different matter. Because leagues have effectively cut off Welsh club rugby from the outside world, how can we evaluate the quality of these Scarlets or indeed the standard of the opposition they have faced week-in week-out?

Paul Thorburn, Neath full-back and ex-Wales captain, makes this valid point: 'One of our problems as clubs in Wales is that we don't play other countries, other clubs, the Baths of this world - not in a meaningful way, anyway - so we have nothing to judge ourselves against.

'People at Llanelli may think they're the best in the world, but are they? How do Llanelli rank in the world? I don't really know.' This is a further argument in favour of an Anglo-Welsh league, but on cup-final day that is another story.

Llanelli: I Jones; I Evans, N Boobyer, N Davies, W Proctor; C Stephens, R Moon (capt); R Evans, A Lamerton, D Joseph, P Davies, A Copsey, M Perego, E Lewis, L Jones.

Neath: P Thorburn; J Reynolds, H Woodland, A Donovan, S Bowling; M McCarthy, R Jones; B Williams, A Thomas, J Davies, Glyn Llewellyn, Gareth Llewellyn (capt), M Morris, S Williams, A Varney.

Referee: G Simmonds (Cardiff).