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Racing 92 scrum-half Maxime Machenaud
2018 Champions Cup finalists Racing 92 will be looking to put their final defeat in Bilbao behind them when they kick off their 2018/19 campaign with a trip to Llanelli on Saturday to face Scarlets, live on BT Sport and beIN Sports (17:30 BST).
- Racing 92 won both their pool stage games in 2015/16 against Scarlets, scoring a combined 93 points and conceding just 26.
- The last time these sides met Scarlets suffered their heaviest ever defeat (64-14) in their European Cup history.
- Racing 92 are unbeaten on their last three visits to Wales, but have only won on one occasion.
- EPCR European Player of the Year 2018, Leone Nakarawa, made 22 offloads last season, 10 more than any other player.
- No player was involved in more tries in the pool stage of last season’s tournament than Scarlets’ Gareth Davies (4 tries, 3 assists).
🔥 @scarlets_rugby lit up Europe with their attacking rugby last season, reaching the semi-finals for the first time in a decade 🏉
Wayne Pivac is looking for a repeat this year – how far will the Welshmen go in the Heineken #ChampionsCup?
Full story 👉https://t.co/71LijRBykn pic.twitter.com/ZQ3LGRMA5h
— Heineken Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) October 9, 2018
Racing 92's Fijian lock Leone Nakarawa is tackled by Scarlets' Welsh hooker Ken Owens.
2018 Champions Cup finalists Racing 92 took a 14-13 away victory from Llanelli thanks to a late penalty try in their Heineken Champions Cup Pool 4 opener against Scarlets.
The Welsh region opened the scoring after Ken Owens and Wyn Jones inched towards the line but were held up by a battling Racing 92 defence. Penalty advantage was being played, though, and Leigh Halfpenny kicked to give Scarlets the early lead.
Racing 92 then dominated the next 20 minutes but couldn’t take advantage despite winning several line-outs in the Scarlets 22 and Olivier Klemenczak diving over at the posts but the ball was knocked on beforehand.
"Absolutely lethal"
"What a step from the scrum-half"
Lightning feet from Gareth Davies ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/PeIxseCXr0
— Watch #ShoulderToShoulder on BT Sport (@btsportrugby) October 13, 2018
After a decent kicking exchange, Racing 92’s Xavier Chandran was the man to break the Scarlets line and played a nice pass to Baptiste Chouzenoux who powered over for the opening try on half time with the first real moment of quality resulting in Racing taking the lead at the interval.
Scarlets hit back at the start of the second half when a driving scrum allowed Gareth Davies to nip round the blindside and jink past his man to dive over in the corner, but Halfpenny could not nail the conversion in tricky kicking conditions.
In the 57th minute, penalty advantage was being played for offside so Jonathan Davies played a deft grubber kick in behind the Racing line that caught out Simon Zebo, giving Jonathan McNicholl the chance to capitalise and he did, sliding over the try line. The conversion was wide again and that proved to haunt the Welsh region.
"That is a massive call" 😱
A late penalty try seals a dramatic win for Racing 92 against Scarlets…#ChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/ncEdF2qLe8
— Watch #ShoulderToShoulder on BT Sport (@btsportrugby) October 13, 2018
From a Racing 92 attacking line-out with four minutes to play, the driving maul powered towards the line before being brought down illegally. Referee Matthew Carley had no hesitation and headed to the posts to award Racing the match-winning penalty try.
Scarlets – who travel to face Leicester Tigers in Round 2 – could not create another chance as they fell to a narrow defeat. Racing 92 will host Ulster Rugby next weekend.
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